'?:•' 


^^  ^ 


^r-!*.     . 


THE 
NEW  TESTAMENT   TODAY 


^ 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •    BOSTON    •    CHICAGO    •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA    •    SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON    •    BOMBAY    •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


THE 

NEW  TESTAMENT 

TODAY 


ERNEST  FINDLAY  SCOTT,  D.D, 

PROFESSOR  OF  BIBLICAL  THEOLOGY  IN  UNION 
THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY,  NEW  YORK 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1921 

All  rights  reserved 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


Copyright,  1921 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  November,  1921. 


FERRIS  PRINTING  COMPANY 
NEW   YORK 


INTRODUCTION 

The  New  Testament  seems  destined,  in  the  age  now 
opening,  to  play  a  greater  part  than  ever  before.  Men 
of  all  schools  of  thought  have  come  back  to  its  ideas  in 
their  plans  for  the  rebuilding  of  our  civilisation  after 
the  wreck.  Those  who  profess  themselves  most  hostile 
to  Christianity  are  yet  convinced  that  the  one  hope  for 
the  w^orld  is  to  accept  the  broad  Christian  principles, 
far  more  seriously  than  has  hitherto  been  done.  In  the 
so-called  ages  of  faith  the  New  Testament,  with  its 
counsels  of  perfection,  was  hardly  permitted  to  inter- 
fere in  the  ordinary  business  of  life.  In  our  days,  when 
the  old  beliefs  seem  to  be  tottering,  it  has  become  the 
most  practical  factor  in  the  world's  affairs.  It  will  have 
more  to  say  in  the  solution  of  the  great  modern  prob- 
lems, than  all  the  schemes  of  our  statesmen  and  econo- 
mists. At  the  same  time,  the  New  Testament  to  which 
the  world  is  now  turning  for  guidance  is  not  the  New 
Testament  of  our  fathers.  To  them  it  was  a  book  of 
divine  oracles,  in  which  the  whole  rule  of  faith  and 
practice  was  laid  down  once  and  forever.  We  have  now 
learned  to  read  it  in  the  light  of  criticism  as  a  book  of 
the  first  century,  affected  at  every  point  by  contempo- 
rary ideas  and  beliefs,  limited  in  its  outlook  by  given 
conditions,  reflecting  the  many  changes  which  the 
church  passed  through  in  its  early  period  of  develop- 
ment. The  traditional  attitude  to  scripture  has  become 
a  thing  of  the  past,  and  no  pui'pose  can  be  served  by 
well-meant  endeavours  to  force  men  back  to  it.  Noth- 
ing, indeed,  has  done  more  to  discredit  the  book  and 


Inteoduction 

arouse  suspicions  of  its  message  than  those  attempts  to 
conceal  or  explain  away  the  facts  of  its  origin.  The 
time  has  surely  come  when  we  should  try  to  exchange 
the  old  attitude  to  scripture  for  one  that  will  be  more 
consistent  with  the  results  of  modern  enquiry.  These 
results,  it  may  be  granted,  are  often  one-sided,  and  in 
every  matter  of  detail  are  open  to  revision.  Those  who 
are  best  acquainted  with  them  will  be  the  first  to  admit 
that  they  are  by  no  means  final.  But  the  main  conclu- 
sions at  which  modern  scholars  have  arrived  can  no 
longer  be  questioned,  and  have  to  be  taken  into  account 
in  our  estimate  of  the  book.  If  it  is  to  exercise  its 
proper  influence  on  the  new  age  it  must  be  presented 
as  it  really  is,  not  as  an  ignorant  piety  has  imagined  it. 
The  aim  of  the  following  chapters  is  to  help,  in  some 
small  way,  towards  the  new  presentation.  The  book  of 
the  primitive  church  was  composed  so  long  ago,  out  of 
so  many  strange  elements,  that  it  might  seem  to  have 
nothing  but  a  historical  interest  for  the  mind  of  our 
time.  Yet  it  has  proved  itself, — and  never  more  so 
than  in  these  changeful  days, — to  be  the  most  living  of 
all  books.  Its  conceptions  of  man's  needs  and  duties, 
of  his  relation  to  God  and  to  his  fellow-men,  have  stood 
every  test,  and  are  likely  to  be  enduring.  How  is  it 
that  the  ancient  book  has  this  permanent  value  ?  It  was 
formerly  assumed  that  the  riddle  could  only  be  answered 
by  a  theory  of  direct  inspiration ;  but  such  a  theory  is 
no  longer  possible,  nor  is  it  necessary.  !N'othing  essen- 
tial is  lost  to  the  'New  Testament  when  we  allow  for 
the  historical  process  whereby  it  came  into  being.  Its 
permanent  message  becomes  in  many  ways  more  intel- 
ligible, and  can  be  applied  more  closely  to  actual  needs 
and  circumstances.  In  any  case,  the  book  must  be 
understood  in  the  light  of  modern  knowledge  before  it 
can  fully  appeal  to  the  modern  world.     In  these  days 


Introduction 

especially,  when  men  have  begun  to  turn  to  it  with  a 
fresh  earnestness  for  direction  in  those  great  issues  on 
which  the  whole  future  depends,  we  cannot  wish  that 
they  should  look  at  it  through  any  artificial  medium. 
Most  of  our  troubles  to-day  have  come  upon  us  because 
we  have  so  often  put  illusions  and  pious  fictions  in  the 
place  of  facts;  and  if  we  are  to  build  again,  on  solid 
foundations,  we  cannot  begin  better  than  by  forming  a 
true  judgment  of  our  New  Testament. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  The  Right  of  the  New  Testament  .         .         .11 

II.  The  Modern  Interpretation     ....      30 

III.  The  New  Testament  as  a  Product  of  its  Time      51 

IV.  The  New  Testament  in  the  Modern  World     .      74 


THE 
NEW  TESTAMENT   TODAY 


CHAPTEE  I 

The  Right  of  the  IsTew  Testament 

FOR  eighteen  centuries  our  religion  has  been  almost 
identified  with  the  'New  Testament.  The  mass 
of  men  have  been  content  to  believe  that  in  this 
book  the  whole  meaning  of  the  faith  was  set  before  them, 
and  that  their  one  duty  was  to  follow  its  direction.  But 
in  our  own  day  this  religion  of  the  book  has  been  called 
in  question.  The  Reformation,  we  are  told,  left  its 
work  half  finished,  or  replaced  the  old  bondage  by  a 
heavier  one.  With  all  its  shortcomings  the  Church  was 
a  living  organism,  and  could  assimilate  new  thought, 
and  adjust  its  message  to  changing  needs  and  circum- 
stances. When  the  Church  was  overthrown,  the  Bible 
was  left  as  the  sole  authority.  The  mind  of  Christen- 
dom was  confined  inexorably  within  the  bounds  traced 
out  for  it  in  a  former  age. 

In  our  time,  therefore,  the  right  of  the  jSTew  Testa- 
ment has  been  seriously  challenged,  not  only  by  enemies 
of  Christianity,  but  by  many  who  have  its  best  interests 
at  heart.  They  are  persuaded  that  a  misplaced  devo- 
tion to  the  book  has  stood  in  the  way  of  the  religion, 
and  is  largely  accountable  for  its  failure  to  exert  its  due 
influence  on  the  modern  world.  Their  protest  is  worth 
considering,  for  it  certainly  contains  a  measure  of 
truth.  In  any  case  it  compels  us  to  reflect  more  deeply 
on  the  nature  of  the  New  Testament,  and  on  the  rea- 
sons why  we  still  accept  it  as  the  primary  document  of 
our  faith. 

11 


12  The  'New  Testament  Today 

It  is  pointed  out,  in  the  first  place,  that  these  writings 
all  came  into  existence  in  the  primitive  age,  before 
there  had  yet  been  time  to  examine  the  new  message  in 
all  its  bearings.  The  writers  were  dominated  by  ideas 
which  we  have  outgrown,  so  that  much  of  their  teaching 
is  now  antiquated  or  positively  misleading.  Eor  that 
part,  they  never  intended  to  present  the  gospel  in  a 
manner  that  should  be  normative  for  all  time.  They 
were  concerned  with  questions  of  faith  and  conduct 
which  arose  in  little  Asian  or  Greek  communities  two 
thousand  years  since,  and  had  no  thought  of  any  wider 
audience.  Why  should  our  life  to-day  be  still  governed 
by  this  ancient  book  ? 

It  is  contended,  on  broader  grounds,  that  the  whole 
idea  of  a  sacred  book  is  a  relic  from  the  past.  In  an 
early  condition  of  society,  when  the  higher  demands 
had  still  an  imperfect  hold  on  reason  and  conscience,  it 
was  necessary  to  support  them  by  some  divine  sanction. 
Laws  were  imposed  in  the  name  of  the  national  god. 
Customs  and  institutions  were  safe-guarded  by  sacred 
legends.  In  almost  all  the  ancient  societies  we  find 
something  that  corresponds  to  the  Jewish  conception  of 
scripture.  The  beliefs  and  practices,  the  moral  and 
social  ideals  which  had  approved  themselves  to  the  mind 
of  the  people  were  drawn  up  in  a  sort  of  code,  which 
was  regarded  as  divinely  given  and  therefore  unchange- 
able. This  reverence  for  scripture,  as  we  can  now  per- 
ceive, was  of  the  utmost  value  in  the  education  of  the 
race.  By  means  of  it  men  were  trained  to  acknowledge 
some  other  rule  than  that  of  caprice  or  the  strong  hand. 
They  were  gradually  taught  to  discern  an  inward  law 
which  was  just  as  real  and  binding  as  any  that  was 
forced  on  them  from  without.  But  may  we  not  presume 
that  the  day  of  the  sacred  book  is  now  over  ?  Men  per- 
form their  duty  as  citizens  without  needing  to  believe 


The  Right  of  the  'Nbw  Testament  13 

that  Magna  Cliarta  aud  the  American  Constitution  are 
inspired  documents,  given  at  the  hands  of  angels.  And 
if  the  Christian  discipline  of  all  these  centuries  has 
gone  for  anything  they  ought  to  have  reached  the  same 
stage  in  their  religion.  It  may  once  have  been  neces- 
sary to  compel  their  assent  by  the  authority  of  a  book, 
supposed  to  have  come  by  immediate  revelation.  But 
to  insist  on  the  book  now  is  to  constrain  our  faith  by 
the  naive  methods  of  a  former  age. 

Another  and  more  vital  objection  is  sometimes  urged. 
'Not  only  is  the  idea  of  a  sacred  book  no  longer  neces- 
sary, but  it  conflicts  with  the  inner  purpose  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  entails  a  dangerous  confusion.  With  the 
I^ew  Testament  in  their  hands  men  are  unable  to  think 
of  the  gospel  as  anything  else  than  a  prescribed  doc- 
trine,— a  code  of  rules  and  maxims,  given  from  with- 
out. Yet  this  was  precisely  the  conception  of  religion 
which  Christianity  set  itself  to  destroy.  Paul  is  never 
tired  of  declaring  that  we  must  walk  by  the  Spirit,  and 
of  contrasting  the  letter  which  killeth  with  the  Spirit 
that  makes  alive.  Everywhere  he  insists  that  what  we 
receive  in  the  gospel  is  not  a  new  law,  however  superior 
to  the  old,  but  a  new  spring  of  action,  which  takes  the 
place  of  outward  law.  And  here  at  least  Paul  was 
faithful  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus  himself.  Jesus  wrote 
no  book  and  laid  down  no  specific  commandments.  He 
sought  to  make  men  realise  that  religion  is  not  a  matter 
of  rule  and  precept,  but  of  fellowship  with  God,  and 
inner  harmony  with  His  will.  The  effect  of  identifying 
his  message  with  the  "New  Testament  has  been  to  ob- 
scure for  multitudes  of  people  its  essential  import. 
They  make  it  their  aim  not  so  much  to  attain  to  that 
will  and  temper  which  Jesus  required  as  to  observe 
what  is  written  in  tbe  book.  Too  often  in  the  endeavour 
to  force  their  minds  into  full  agreement  with  it  they 


14  The  ^ew  Testament  Today 

have  failed  in  that  sincerity  which  is  not  the  least  of 
its  demands. 

Once  more,  it  is  maintained  that  as  the  religion  of  a 
book  Christianity  has  been  hampered  in  its  free  devel- 
opment. During  the  century  that  followed  Jesus'  death 
it  showed  a  marvellous  power  of  adapting  itself  to  new 
conditions  and  embodying  its  message  from  time  to  time 
in  fresh  and  living  forms.  It  might  have  preser\^ed 
this  power  through  the  centuries  since,  and  so  have  kept 
itself  always  in  sympathy  with  the  world's  movement. 
But  this  became  impossible  when  once  the  New  Testa- 
ment was  accepted  as  the  sacred  book.  The  world  w^ent 
forward  while  the  church  was  fixed  at  its  old  moorings, 
committed  to  a  form  of  teaching  which  became  ever 
more  distant  and  unreal.  To-day,  in  the  face  of  modern 
science  and  democracy,  it  has  to  proclaim  its  message  in 
language  that  has  never  changed  since  the  days  of  the 
Caesars,  and  this,  more  than  anything  else,  has  made  its 
task  a  hopeless  one.  The  message,  w^hatever  may  be  its 
value,  is  unintelligible  to  the  new  time. 

Such  are  the  arguments  which  are  conmionly  brought 
forward,  and  many  would  hold,  on  the  strength  of  them, 
that  the  New  Testament  ought  now  to  be  discarded,  or 
at  least  given  a  subordinate  place.  The  suggestion  is 
sometimes  made  that  if  a  book  is  necessary  for  pur- 
poses of  Christian  worship  and  instruction  a  new  one 
might  be  put  together  which  would  be  more  truly  rep- 
resentative. Paul  and  the  evangelists  were  followed  by 
many  great  teachers,  superior  in  genius  and  equally 
endowed  with  the  Christian  spirit.  Might  it  not  be 
possible  to  retain  some  part  of  the  New  Testament  and 
supplement  it  with  passages  from  the  poets  and  saints 
and  thinkers  who  have  given  sublime  utterance,  all 
through  the  centuries,  to  the  truth  of  Christ?  A  book 
of  this  kind  w^ould  serve  to  remind  us  that  revelation 


The  Eight  of  the  ISTew  Testament  15 

has  never  ceased.  It  would  keep  us  free  from  bondage 
to  the  letter,  and  enable  us  to  grasp  the  great  Christian 
ideas  as  they  have  expressed  themselves  in  many  diverse 
forms.  Or  is  it  necessary  that  we  should  associate  our 
religion  with  any  book?  If  we  believe  that  God  is  al- 
ways speaking,  and  that  His  message  comes  fresh  to 
every  age  and  every  individual,  why  should  we  depend 
on  the  witness  of  other  men?  Is  it  not  time  that  we 
should  rise  to  the  full  Christian  conception  of  a  wor- 
ship in  spirit  and  in  truth  ? 

!N"ow  it  cannot  be  denied  that  this  prejudice  against 
the  'New  Testament  is  in  some  part  due  to  a  genuine 
feeling  for  the  things  that  lie  deepest  in  our  religion. 
When  we  think  of  what  often  passes  for  Christianity 
we  can  see  that  the  book  has  indeed  been  a  hindrance. 
Men  have  put  it  in  the  place  of  the  real  message,  and 
have  made  their  loyalty  to  it  an  excuse  for  spiritual 
indolence.  They  have  allowed  the  dead  hand  of  the  past 
to  stifle  them,  and  have  mistaken  things  that  were  acci- 
dental and  transitory  for  the  very  substance  of  the 
faith.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  the  New  Testament 
must  go  because  the  traditional  theories  about  it  are  no 
longer  tenable.  Those  theories  themselves,  when  we  get 
back  to  their  ultimate  meaning,  sprang  out  of  a  fact, 
which  has  impressed  the  mind  of  the  church  in  all  ages. 
The  New  Testament,  more  than  any  other  book,  has 
been  life-giving.  All  Christian  thought  and  activity 
have  grown  out  of  it,  and  have  proved  most  fruitful 
when  they  were  rooted  in  it  most  deeply.  This  was 
explained  in  former  days  by  a  doctrine  of  inspiration 
whicl^  we  cannot  now  accept ;  but  the  fact  remains,  and 
we  have  to  find  a  more  adequate  explanation.  Taking 
the  New  Testament,  as  we  now  are  obliged  to  do,  in 
all  the  light  which  modern  criticism  has  thrown  on  it, 
why  must  we  still  accord  it  a  central  place  ? 


16  The  Xew  Testament  Today 

(1)  For  one  thing,  it  stands  for  the  element  of  per- 
manence in  our  religion.  Without  it  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  the  Christianity  of  to-day  would  be  linked 
with  that  of  the  past  centuries  by  little  more  than  the 
bare  name.  As  it  is,  the  church  has  changed  its  char- 
acter many  times  over,  the  doctrines  and  institutions 
have  passed  from  one  phase  to  another,  but  the  ISTew 
Testament  has  remained  the  standard  of  Christian 
thought,  and  has  ensured  a  continuity  through  all 
change.  The  different  systems  have  all  started  from  it, 
and  have  merged  in  it  again  when  their  day  was 
finished.  The  inference  has  often  been  drawn  that  it 
has  been  a  drag  on  religious  progress;  but  surely  the 
very  opposite  is  true.  Progress  implies  a  consistency 
of  aim  and  direction,  without  which  all  seeming  ad- 
vance can  be  nothing  but  wandering  in  a  circle.  By 
preserving  the  continuity  of  our  religion  in  all  the 
stages  of  its  history  the  N'ew  Testament  has  been  the 
main  factor  in  progress,  ^ot  only  so,  but  the  faith  and 
endeavour  of  the  past  have  so  entwined  themselves 
around  this  book  that  it  could  not  be  thrown  aside  with- 
out incalculable  loss.  It  must  never  be  forgotten  that 
the  !N^ew  Testament  stands  not  for  itself  alone  but  for 
all  that  is  grandest  and  most  sacred  in  the  life  of  nine- 
teen centuries.  To  part  with  it  would  be  just  as  much 
an  impoverishment  as  to  abandon  our  mother-tongue. 
It  might  easily  be  said  of  our  language,  as  of  the  ISTew 
Testament,  that  it  has  come  down  from  a  remote  past, 
and  gives  currency,  by  its  metaphor  and  vocabulary,  to 
a  multitude  of  wrong  ideas.  Ought  we  not  to  have 
done  with  this  defective  instrument,  and  engage  a  body 
of  philological  experts  to  make  us  a  better  language? 
Yet  we  hesitate  to  give  up  English  for  Esperanto,  and 
the  preference  is  not  to  be  set  down  wholly  to  a  blind 
conservatism.    To  be  sure  the  language  grew  up  at  hap- 


The  Right  of  the  !N^ew  Testament  17 

hazard,  and  breaks  down  at  every  point  when  we  put  it 
to  a  scientific  test.  But  it  has  been  the  speech  of  our 
race  for  all  these  ages.  It  has  become  one  with  the 
wisdom  of  our  great  thinkers,  with  the  poetry  of  Shak- 
speare  and  Milton,  with  all  the  glories  of  the  most 
splendid  history  in  the  world.  We  want  to  keep  it  for 
these  things,  as  well  as  for  itself.  Too  much,  no  doubt, 
has  often  been  made  of  the  sentimental  argument  for 
holding  to  the  New  Testament,  and  it  is  justly  answered 
that  in  times  of  great  decision  even  the  dearest  monu- 
ments of  the  past  may  have  to  be  sacrificed  for  the  sake 
of  some  higher  end.  If  a  temple  or  a  book  or  an  insti- 
tution comes  between  us  and  the  truth,  like  a  venerable 
tree  that  shuts  out  a  house  from  the  sunlight,  it  must 
needs  go,  however  we  may  regret  it.  But  the  argu- 
ment in  question  is  more  than  sentimental.  One  of  the 
chief  functions  of  the  'New  Testament  has  been  to  link 
the  ages  with  each  other,  so  that  the  best  results  of  the 
past  may  ever  be  carried  forward  to  enrich  the  future. 
Our  religion,  in  the  long  course  of  its  history,  has  drawn 
into  itself  all  that  was  most  worth  preserving  in  an- 
cient thought,  in  mediaeval  piety,  in  the  teaching  of 
Reformers  and  Puritans,  in  the  modern  striving  towards 
liberty.  Around  the  New  Testament  as  a  centre  these 
various  contributions  have  gathered,  and  have  blended 
gradually  with  one  another.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  without  this  book  we  should  have  lost  not  only  the 
original  Christian  message  but  much  of  the  best  thought 
and  inspiration  which  have  come  to  us  from  the  cen- 
turies since. 

(2)  But  there  is  another  and  weightier  reason  for 
attaching  a  paramount  value  to  the  book.  Although  it 
is  a  spiritual  religion  Christianity  is  none  the  less  in- 
separable from  certain  historical  facts,  and  therefore 
requires  a  document  in  which  these  facts  of  its  origin 


IS  The  I^ew  Testament  Today 

are  duly  set  forth  and  attested.  Many  thinkers,  indeed, 
have  sought  to  detach  it  from  the  facts,  in  order  that  its 
religious  message  might  be  placed  on  a  surer  basis. 
They  rightly  point  out  that  in  actual  events  there  is 
always  a  contingent  element,  which  interferes  with  the 
purity  of  spiritual  ideas.  Moreover,  historical  evidence 
is  at  the  best  uncertain,  and  if  we  can  hardly  get  at  the 
truth  of  events  of  yesterday  when  they  are  reported  by 
eye-witnesses,  how  can  we  rest  our  faith  on  the  con- 
flicting records  of  things  done  two  thousand  years  ago  ? 
The  first  century  was  hardly  ended  when  these  doubts 
as  to  the  historical  setting  of  the  gospel  began  to  trouble 
the  Gnostic  teachers.  They  sought  to  free  the  work  of 
Christ  from  its  entanglement  with  human  accident  by 
making  it  wholly  a  transaction  in  the  spiritual  world. 
He  himself  became  a  principle  of  redemption :  the  story 
of  his  life  was  resolved  into  allegory:  ideas  were  sub- 
stituted for  all  that  had  come  down  in  the  tradition  as 
outward  events.  A  similar  effort  has  been  made  many 
times  since  to  abstract  the  gospel  from  its  historical 
frame-work,  and  in  this  manner  to  secure  for  it  an  un- 
assailable foundation.  But  it  was  nothing  else  than  the 
reaction  from  the  Gnostic  mode  of  thought  that  led  to 
the  formation  of  our  ^ew  Testament.  The  church  was 
called  on  to  decide,  at  the  most  critical  turning-point  in 
its  history,  whether  the  message  could  be  separated  from 
the  facts  out  of  which  it  had  sprung,  and  this  was  seen 
to  be  once  for  all  impossible.  It  had  become  clear  that 
the  attempt  to  make  Christianity  more  spiritual  by  lift- 
ing it  out  of  time  would  presently  destroy  it.  So  far 
from  gaining  in  purity  it  was  degenerating  into  a  mass 
of  wild  speculation  and  magical  rites;  its  virtue  as  a 
living  faith  was  passing  out  of  it.  The  church  was 
made  aware,  not  a  moment  too  soon,  that  if  the  religion 
was  to  survive  it  must  be  anchored  to  its  historical 


The  Right  of  the  !N'ew  Testament  19 

origins,  and  for  this  purpose  the  records  of  the  life  of 
Jesus  and  of  the  primitive  age  were  collected  in  an 
authoritative  book.  There  is  indeed  a  danger,  as  the 
Gnostics  perceived,  in  confounding  the  inner  purport  of 
the  gospel  with  a  historical  tradition,  and  we  are  learn- 
ing, in  our  days,  how  much  has  been  made  essential 
that  is  only  temporary  and  accidental.  But  when  all 
is  said  it  is  not  the  weakness  but  the  strength  of  Chris- 
tianity that  it  came  into  being  as  a  historical  religion. 
If  it  had  offered  its  message  of  redemption  in  some  ab- 
stract form  it  would  long  ago  have  gone  the  way  of 
those  philosophies  which  have  no  foot-hold  in  reality, 
and  sooner  or  later  become  meaningless.  But  it  ap- 
peared from  the  first  as  the  word  made  flesh.  It  took 
hold  of  a  particular  age  in  history,  and  showed  how 
amidst  these  cramping  conditions  men  could  realise  a 
great  ideal  and  enter  into  fellow^ship  with  God.  When 
you  try  to  separate  the  gospel  from  what  you  choose 
to  call  the  mere  time-element  you  break  the  very  spring 
of  its  power.  Men  are  moved  by  it  to-day  because  they 
know  that  from  the  beginning  it  has  been  bound  up 
with  the  realities  of  human  life.  The  more  vividly  they 
can  picture  to  themselves  how  Jesus  met  his  difficulties, 
how  the  Apostles  worked  in  Rome  and  Ephesus,  the 
more  directly  they  can  respond  to  the  message  as  it 
comes  to  them  now.  This  is  one  of  the  chief  reasons 
why  the  !N'ew  Testament  must  always  maintain  its 
primary  place.  !N"ot  only  does  it  bear  witness  to  the 
facts  out  of  which  Christianity  arose,  but  it  makes  us 
feel  that  these  facts  have  a  religious  value.  The  word 
is  not  in  heaven  or  in  the  depths  but  nigh  to  us,  in  our 
lives  and  in  our  hearts.  We  can  apprehend  it  in  action, 
in  a  world  which  with  all  its  differences  was  like  our 
own,  and  this  is  the  secret  of  its  powder. 

(3)     In   the  "New   Testament,   then,   the   historical 


20  The  E'ew  Testament  Today 

facts  are  attested  by  immediate  witnesses;  and  here  we 
discover  a  further  reason  for  its  abiding  value.  ISTot 
only  are  the  facts  recorded  in  their  outward  setting,  but 
they  are  understood  and  illuminated  in  a  manner  that 
was  not  possible  at  a  later  time.  At  first  sight  it  might 
appear  unfortunate  that  the  classic  book  of  our  religion 
should  be  wholly  composed  of  writings  that  date  from 
its  earliest  period.  An  arbitrary  line  has  thus  been 
drawn  between  one  age  of  the  church  and  all  the  others. 
Multitudes  have  been  led  to  believe  that  somewhere  in 
the  early  part  of  the  second  century  the  Spirit  all  at 
once  ceased  its  work  of  revelation,  and  that  ever  since 
we  have  been  left  without  any  sure  guidance.  It  might 
fairly  be  argued  that  the  wa'iters  of  that  early  time 
were  in  some  ways  less  fitted  than  those  who  came  after- 
wards to  grasp  the  full  import  of  the  gospel.  It  had  not 
yet  had  time  to  unfold  itself.  It  worked  on  a  narrow 
stage,  and  had  no  opportunity  of  bringing  its  principles 
to  bear  on  some  of  the  most  vital  of  human  interests. 
The  church  in  later  times  has  been  drawn  into  relation 
with  art,  with  scientific  enquiry,  with  the  larger  activi- 
ties of  society  and  the  state;  and  in  this  first  century 
book,  written  for  a  struggling  sect  which  stood  aloof 
from  the  world's  great  movement,  it  can  find  nothing  to 
direct  it.  IsTone  the  less  it  was  a  true  instinct  that  fixed 
on  these  primitive  writings  and  made  them  normative 
for  Christian  faith,  ^ot  only  were  the  ^ew  Testa- 
ment writers  the  immediate  witnesses  who  vouched  for 
the  facts,  but  they  preserved  the  first,  overwhelming  im- 
pression which  these  facts  had  made.  At  the  time  when 
they  wrote,  the  echoes  of  Jesus'  voice  were  still  linger- 
ing; his  personality,  and  the  memory  of  his  life  and 
death  were  something  more  than  a  cherished  tradition. 
They  enable  us  to  realise  the  effect  of  his  message  on 
those  to  whom  it  was  still  fresh  and  wonderful.    It  mav 


The  Right  of  the  'Nbw  Testament  21 

indeed  be  granted  that  the  church  has  appealed  to  the 
testimony  of  its  first  teachers  on  grounds  which  we  now 
recognise  as  mistaken.  Because  they  lived  on  the  very 
morrow  of  the  life  of  Jesus  it  has  been  assumed  that 
they  received  the  gospel  just  as  it  had  fallen  from  his 
lips,  and  put  it  on  record,  unsullied  by  any  strange  doc- 
trine, for  its  security  in  after  times.  We  now  know 
that  the  personal  disciples  of  Jesus  had  only  appre- 
hended his  gospel  in  part,  and  that  even  in  the  first 
generation  it  came  to  be  mingled  with  many  elements 
that  were  foreign  to  its  nature.  But  in  at  least  two 
ways  the  earliest  believers  were  qualified,  as  none  after 
them  could  be,  to  understand  the  message.  On  the  one 
hand,  they  were  awake  to  its  newness.  They  could  feel 
the  thrill  of  the  pioneer  who  looks  out  from  the  peak 
on  the  untraversed  ocean.  In  a  few  years  more  the 
Christian  worship,  with  its  visions  and  raptures,  was  to 
become  a  matter  of  routine ;  the  marvellous  doctrines 
were  to  be  formulated  in  creeds  and  catechisms,  on 
which  rival  theologians  could  exercise  their  subtlety. 
Christianity  passed,  like  a  new  invigorating  element, 
into  the  very  atmosphere  which  men  breathed,  and  be- 
came so  mingled  with  the  other  elements  that  it  could 
hardly  be  distinguished.  But  in  that  first  age  the  gos- 
pel was  literally  the  good  news,  and  the  surprise  and 
exultation  of  good  news  can  only  be  felt  once.  It  is  one 
of  the  chief  services  of  the  ^ew  Testament  to  our  life 
as  Christians  that  it  preserves  for  us  this  first  impres- 
sion. Our  minds  have  grown  dull  after  the  lapse  of 
centuries  to  all  that  the  new  religion  has  meant  for  the 
world.  When  we  turn  back  to  the  'New  Testament  we 
find  many  things  that  are  now  strange  to  us,  but  every- 
where there  is  the  triumphant  sense  that  light  has  risen 
out  of  darkness,  that  a  divine  power  has  taken  hold  of 
the  lives  of  men  and  is  working  mightily.    The  thinkers 


22  The  ^STew  Testament  Today 

who  came  later  were  able  to  explore  the  gospel,  and  to 
define  and  elaborate  its  teaching  far  more  fully  than 
Paul  and  John.  It  is  not  presumptuous  to  believe  that 
in  our  own  time  we  have  come  to  discern  some  aspects 
of  it  which  have  hitherto  been  overlooked.  But  the 
chief  thing  necessary  is  to  keep  alive  our  feeling  for  it 
as  a  revelation,  through  which  we  have  knowledge  of 
God,  and  of  His  will  and  purpose.  To  make  this  re- 
sponse to  it  we  need  to  see  it  again  with  the  eyes  of 
those  earliest  teachers,  on  whom  the  ends  of  the  ages 
had  come. 

But  this  sense  of  wonder  which  in  its  full  intensity 
was  only  possible  in  the  first  days,  carried  with  it  a 
faculty  of  insight.  It  is  no  accident  that  the  beginning 
of  a  religious  movement  is  invariably  its  great  period, 
when  it  produces  its  chief  teachers  and  gives  classical 
expression  to  its  central  ideas.  Philosophy,  art,  litera- 
ture ascend  gradually  to  their  golden  age,  by  a  long 
process  of  thought  and  experiment.  But  religion  must 
leap  to  its  goal  by  an  intuition,  or  it  will  never  reach  it. 
The  things  it  deals  with  are  the  ultimate  realities,  and 
the  labour  of  reflection  too  often  dulls  the  direct  vision 
by  which  they  are  seized.  This  is  the  reason  why  at  the 
very  outset,  in  the  ardour  of  the  first  enthusiasm,  the 
church  threw  oif  those  wonderful  writings  which  make 
up  the  ]^ew  Testament.  They  were  written  accident- 
ally, by  men  who  had  little  skill  in  the  art  of  expres- 
sion, and  who  could  not  devote  themselves,  in  the  stress 
of  their  practical  work,  to  any  sustained  effort  of 
thought.  Yet  we  have  only  to  contrast  the  'New  Testa- 
ment books  with  those  of  the  next  two  centuries,  when 
the  church  had  enlisted  in  its  service  powerful  thinkers, 
with  their  full  share  in  the  best  culture  of  the  time. 
We  feel  at  once  that  the  creative  impu]se  has  died  down. 
The  writers  repeat,  more  or  less  mechanically,  a  lesson 


The  Right  of  the  !N'ew  Testament  23 

they  have  learned,  and  the  real  import  of  which  thej 
have  imperfectly  grasped.  To  understand  what  they 
wish  to  say  in  their  dreary  treatises  we  have  constantly 
to  go  back  to  the  !N'ew  Testament.  And  we  must  go  back 
to  it  still  in  order  to  make  out  the  real  significance  of 
the  Christian  movement,  right  on  to  our  own  days. 
This  does  not  mean  that  the  E'ew  Testament  gives  the 
complete  and  final  exposition  of  the  gospel,  and  that  all 
the  after  developments  have  gone  astray.  Its  teaching 
at  the  best  is  fragmentary,  and  involves  ideas  and  as- 
sumptions which  were  growing  outworn  even  in  that 
age.  But  in  forms  however  imperfect  it  sets  clearly  be- 
fore us  the  vital  truths  of  Christianity.  Later  teachers 
have  pondered  on  them  and  defined  them,  and  related 
them  to  one  another  and  to  the  new  problems  which  have 
emerged  from  time  to  time.  But  the  men  of  the  'New 
Testament  discerned  by  an  immediate  insight  the  essen- 
tial purport  of  the  new  message.  To  this  extent  we  can 
still  speak  of  an  inspired  book,  w^hich  must  always  be 
the  standard  of  Christian  thought. 

(4)  We  come,  then,  to  the  fundamental  ground  on 
which  the  claim  of  the  ISTew  Testament  must  be  based. 
When  all  allowance  is  made  for  those  elements  which 
detract  from  its  permanent  value  it  stands  out,  on  its 
own  merits,  as  the  greatest  of  religious  books.  For 
eighteen  centuries  men  have  been  testing  it,  and  have 
tried  ever  and  again  to  advance  beyond  it,  but  it  has 
continued  to  hold  its  own.  Its  messages  of  comfort 
and  warning  still  make  a  universal  appeal.  All  later 
search  for  the  true  knowledge  of  God,  the  true  prin- 
ciples of  life  and  duty  have  been  most  fruitful  when 
most  in  harmony  with  its  teaching.  It  does  not  hold  its 
place  by  virtue  of  any  pious  convention  but  because  it 
has  really  proved  itself,  in  himian  experience,  to  be  the 
most  helpful  book  in  the  world. 


24  The  'New  Testament  Today 

It  would  clear  away  much  confusion  if  we  could 
clearly   apprehend  the  fact  that  the  ISTew  Testament 
owed  its  position  from  the  first  to  its  intrinsic  excel- 
lence.    Much  has  been  written  on  the  history  of  the 
Canon,  and  from  most  of  the  books  on  this  subject  we 
rise  with  the  uneasy  feeling  that  the  New  Testament 
has  no  right  to  exist  at  all.     For  several  centuries  the 
church  was  quite  uncertain  what  writings  should  be  in- 
cluded.     Some   that   were   once   recognised   have  now 
dropped  out,  no  one  can  tell  precisely  when  or  why. 
Others  that  have  now  secured  a  place  were  for  a  long 
time  regarded  doubtfully.     The  collection  as  we  have 
it  was  formed  apparently  on  no  definite  principles.     It 
was  never  sanctioned  by  any  regular  authority.     All 
that  we  can  ascertain  is  that  about  the  middle  of  the 
fourth  century  the  present  books  had  come  to  be  ac- 
knowledged by  all  Christian  men  as  their  scriptures. 
Modem  attacks  on  the  I^ew  Testament  have  naturally 
made  much  of  this  purely  fortuitous  manner  in  which 
it  came  into  being.     Why,  it  is  asked,  should  we  pay 
such  peculiar  deference  to  this  book  ?    Who  gave  it  this 
authority?     Why  should  we  not  accept  as  scripture  all 
the  early  literature  of  the  church,  as  well  as  these  par- 
ticular writings  which  came  to  be  singled  out  by  the 
play  of  chance  ?     But  the  best  vindication  of  the  New 
Testament  is  just  this  fact  that  it  was  put  together  and 
accepted  fortuitously.     We  cannot  be  sufficiently  grate- 
ful that  in  the  early  centuries  there  was  no  official  body 
of  church  leaders  or  theologians  who  could  determine, 
by  formal  rules,  which  books  should  be  included  and 
which  left  out.     The  mind  of  the  church  was  permitted 
to  work  freely,  so  that  the  process  which  gave  us  the 
]N^ew  Testament  was  no  other  than  that  which  has  as- 
sured the  survival  of  all  great  literature.     Out  of  the 
many  miscellaneous   writings  which   had   come   down 


The  Right  of  the  N^ew  Testament  25 

from  the  earlier  days  a  certain "  number  were  found, 
after  a  sifting  that  went  on  for  some  generations,  to 
have  selected  themselves.     They  had  proved,  in  Chris- 
tian experience,  to  have  an  inner  vitality,  while  others, 
which  pretended  to  just  as  high  a  title,  did  not  make 
the  same  appeal.     As  a  rule  there  are  no  books  so  un- 
profitable, even  from  a  religious  point  of  view,  as  so- 
called  ^'sacred  books'".     From  the  Book  of  the  Dead  to 
the  Book  of  Mormon  they  are  little  more  than  desert 
patches  on  the  face  of  the  world's  literature.     The  rea- 
son is  that  they  have  been  imposed  by  the  fiat  of  some 
prophet  or  priesthood,  and  have  been  maintained  by  a 
superstitious  reverence.     The  books  of  the  l^ew  Testa- 
ment won  their  place  in  an  open  field,  by  the  free  and 
deliberate  choice  of  the  whole  body  of  Christian  people. 
It  is  well  to  insist  on  this  fact,  for  nothing  has  so 
prejudiced  men  against  the  'New  Testament  as  the  be- 
lief that  it  has  been  forced  on  them  by  some  kind  of 
official  decree.    Even  when  they  accept  its  teaching  they 
are  apt  to  do  so  with  a  silent  protest,  as  feeling  that  all 
this  has  been  prescribed  for  them,  and  that  no  room  is 
left  for  their  own  judgment.     The  church  has  done  the 
book  a  very  doubtful  service  by  requiring  that  it  must 
be  received  without  question,  as  different  in  character 
from  all  other  books.     An  impression  has  been  created 
that  it  cannot  stand  by  itself,  and  that  the  reverence  for 
it  would  quickly  disappear  if  it  were  not  stamped  as 
sacred.     But  the  tiaith  is  that  men  will  not  respond  to 
any  book,  whatever  claim  is  made  for  it,  unless  it  has 
virtue  of  its  own.     They  cannot  even  be  induced  to 
read  it.    There  are  portions  of  the  Old  Testament  which 
are  reckoned  in  the  Holy  Bible  just  as  much  as  Isaiah 
and  the  Psalms,  and  yet  the  devoutest  reader  passes 
them  by.     In  the  New  Testament  itself  there  are  chap- 
ters in  the  Apocalypse  and  elsewhere  which  do  not  exist 


26  The  !N'ew  Testament  Today 

for  the  ordinary  man.  If  the  whole  book  had  been  of 
this  character  it  would  long  ago  have  been  left  to  pro- 
fessional theologians,  in  spite  of  all  theories  of  its  su- 
preme value.  It  has  maintained  itself  because,  like  the 
Iliad  and  Hamlet,  it  carries  its  own  credentials.  Men 
have  treasured  it  from  the  earliest  days  till  now  because 
it  moves  them,  because  it  answers  their  needs  and 
aspirations,  because  it  truly  pulses  with  a  divine 
power. 

The  right  of  the  ISTew  Testament  must  ultimately 
be  grounded  on  this  inherent  worth  of  its  message, 
attested  as  it  has  been  by  men  of  all  races  and  classes, 
in  all  varieties  of  circumstance,  in  periods  so  different 
as  the  early  centuries,  the  Middle  Ages,  the  present 
day.  The  time  has  gone  by  when  its  claim  can  be 
rested  safely  on  any  other  ground.  For  years  past,  in 
every  field  of  thought  and  action,  there  has  been  a 
growing  revolt  against  all  outward  authority,  and  in 
the  days  we  live  in  it  has  become  more  pronounced  than 
ever.  So  many  systems  that  claimed  a  prescriptive 
right  to  our  obedience  have  been  found  w^anting  that 
we  are  now  suspicious  of  every  such  claim.  This  revolt, 
in  its  more  violent  forms,  already  shows  signs  of  pass- 
ing, but  the  temper  that  has  inspired  it  will  remain. 
The  only  authority  which  the  future  is  likely  to  recog- 
nise is  that  which  has  its  sanctions  within  itself.  Rulers 
will  have  to  show  a  personal  title  to  sovereignty;  insti- 
tutions will  stand  or  fall  by  their  actual  worth  and  re- 
sult. The  'New  Testament  will  require  to  prove  its  au- 
thority in  like  manner,  and  no  tradition  or  dogma  will 
do  much  to  support  it.  Our  mistake  in  the  past  has  been 
to  assume  that  it  stood  in  need  of  such  support.  In  spite 
of  all  professions  of  faith  there  has  always  been  a 
secret  fear  that  the  book,  just  as  it  was,  would  not 
bear  a  too  rigorous  scrutiny.     It  was  the  product  of  a 


The  Right  of  the  ISTew  Testament  27 

distant  time,  and  did  not  represent  the  highest  culture 
even  of  its  own  age.  It  was  not  written  in  impressive 
oracular  style,  and  did  not  appear,  on  the  face  of  it, 
to  have  the  proper  dignity  of  a  sacred  book;  so  it 
seemed  necessary  to  encircle  it  with  peculiar  safeguards. 
Men  must  be  compelled  to  reverence  it,  or  they  might 
treat  it  with  neglect.  There  are  those  even  now  who 
watch  with  anxiety  the  inroads  of  modern  criticism, 
and  would  arrest  them  if  they  could.  As  one  artificial 
prop  and  another  is  taken  from  under  the  book  they  are 
afraid  that  it  may  fall  to  pieces  and  with  it  the  Christian 
religion.  But  the  removal  of  these  props  has  been  a 
real  service  to  the  'New  Testament,  and  has  strengthened 
its  authority.  We  are  now  discovering  with  surprise 
that  it  can  stand  by  itself.  ISTo  other  book  has  the  same 
vitality.  No  other  has  expressed  so  clearly  and  pro- 
foundly the  abiding  laws  of  the  spiritual  life. 

These  are  the  chief  grounds  on  which  the  claim  of 
the  J^ew  Testament  must  be  rested,  and  they  have  al- 
ways been  the  grounds,  although  it  is  only  in  modern 
days  that  we  have  learned  to  acknowledge  them.  From 
the  outset  Christian  men  were  conscious  of  a  unique 
power  attaching  to  the  book  and  were  formerly  content 
to  attribute  it  vaguely  to  inspiration.  We  are  now 
coming  to  perceive  what  the  inspiration  consists  in.  The 
book  had  its  origin  in  the  glorious  dawn  of  our  religion, 
when  men  were  still  in  inunediate  contact  with  the 
life  of  Christ,  and  were  awake  to  the  newness  and 
grandeur  of  his  message.  They  were  able  to  seize  in- 
tuitively the  truths  which  lay  at  the  heart  of  it,  and 
which  could  only  impress  themselves,  in  their  whole 
force  and  vividness,  on  an  age  to  which  it  had  come  as 
a  sudden  revelation.  The  ^ew  Testament  thus  appeals 
to  us  by  qualities  inherent  in  itself.  ISTothing  can  be 
more  misleading  than  to  contrast  the  written  book  with 


28  The  ^N'ew  Testalient  Today 

the  living  Spirit,  for  tlie  Spirit  nowhere  siDeaks  to  iis 
so  powerfully  and  directly  as  through  the  book. 

This  clearer  sense  of  the  true  value  of  the  l^ew 
Testament  has  doubtless  changed  our  attitude  to  it  in 
many  v^^ays,  and  it  will  be  some  time  before  the  church 
has  fully  adjusted  itself  to  the  new  conditions.  It  will 
be  necessary,  for  one  thing,  to  approach  the  book,  not 
with  less  reverence,  but  with  more  of  human  feeling. 
It  w^as  written  by  men  like  ourselves  and  the  more  we 
understand  them  as  men,  with  difficulties  and  limita- 
tions and  individual  tempers  for  which  we  must  make 
due  allowance,  the  more  significant  will  be  their  mes- 
sage. They  wove  it  into  a  human  experience,  similar 
to  our  own,  and  therefore  it  comes  home  to  us  with 
power.  Again,  we  have  to  read  the  book  in  its  context 
with  a  particular  age  of  history.  Its  message,  whatever 
may  be  its  permanent  validity,  was  given  in  forms  of 
thought  and  was  fitted  into  conditions  which  belonged 
to  that  Roman  world  of  the  first  century.  Our  task  is 
to  reinterpret  the  Christian  thinking  of  that  age  in  order 
to  make  it  applicable  to  our  own.  It  might  often  seem 
as  if  critical  enquiry,  in  its  ceaseless  effort  to  discover 
the  contemporary  factors  in  'New  Testament  thought, 
is  dissolving  it  altogether.  But  the  effort,  when  we 
consider  it  rightly,  is  a  constructive  one.  To  know  the 
gospel  in  its  essential  principles  we  must  be  able  to 
discriminate  those  things  which  have  filtered  into  it 
from  the  influences  of  the  time.  Once  more,  in  our 
reading  of  the  book  we  need  to  carry  with  us  a  true 
conception  of  the  meaning  of  faith.  It  was  the  most 
grievous  result  of  the  older  doctrine  of  scripture  that 
faith  itself,  for  multitudes  of  people,  came  to  mean 
nothing  else  than  undoubting  acceptance  of  everything 
written  in  the  book.  This  idea  still  lingers,  both  within 
and  without  the  church,  and  is  more  to  blame  than  any 


The  Kight  of  the  Kew  Testament  29 

other  for  confusing  the  issues  of  religion.  But  faith, 
in  the  true  meaning  of  that  great  word,  is  our  response 
to  the  love  of  God,  the  demands  of  the  moral  law,  the 
ideal  set  forth  to  us  in  the  life  and  character  of  Jesus. 
It  is  this  faith  that  must  possess  us  in  reading  the  New 
Testament.  We  are  to  feel  that  here  the  central  teach- 
ing of  Christianity  is  offered  to  us,  and  that  our  duty 
is  to  pierce  through  the  letter  to  the  truth  which  it  has 
expressed  in  part. 

So  in  the  light  of  modern  investigation  we  have  been 
compelled  to  revise  our  estimate  of  the  l^ew  Testament, 
and  to  rest  its  claim  on  different  grounds.  The  change 
is  still  so  recent,  and  has  been  so  subversive  of  religious 
habit  and  opinion,  that  perhaps  it  appears  more  far- 
reaching  than  it  really  is.  It  might  be  compared  to 
those  revolutions  which  take  place  from  time  to  time 
in  the  political  world.  A  nation  has  been  accustomed 
for  centuries  to  regard  some  authority  as  sacrosanct, 
and  all  loyalties  and  social  arrangements  have  become 
so  entwined  with  it  that  its  fall  seems  at  first  to  be 
the  end  of  everything.  But  the  life  of  a  nation  does 
not  depend  on  a  set  form  of  government.  It  is  found 
by  and  bye  that  the  titular  authority  has  masked  the 
real  one,  to  which  men  have  always  rendered  their 
obedience,  and  that  by  discarding  it  they  have  entered  on 
a  larger  citizenship.  Such,  we  may  feel  assured,  will 
be  the  result  of  our  changed  attitude  to  scripture. 
Christianity  does  not  consist  in  a  book  but  in  the  mes 
sage  that  lies  behind  the  book.  The  'New  Testament 
will  only  grow  in  value  as  we  understand  its  true 
function,  and  reach  beyond  the  written  word  to  the 
realities  of  our  faith. 


CHAPTEE  II 

The  Modekn  Interpretation 

THE  criticism  of  the  ISTew  Testament  can  be  best 
understood  wben  we  regard  it  as  merely  a  phase 
of  the  great  movement  which  has  been  in  process 
ever  since  the  reawakening  in  the  fifteenth  century. 
Right  on  to  that  time  the  world  had  been  living  under 
the  shadow  of  the  ancient  civilisation.  It  was  in  the  posi- 
tion of  a  colony  which  as  yet  has  developed  no  culture  of 
its  own,  and  can  set  no  aim  before  it  but  to  presei've, 
under  many  disadvantages,  the  traditions  it  has  brought 
over  from  the  mother  land.  But  a  time  came  when  the 
new  nations  which  had  been  slowly  struggling  into 
existence,  became  fully  conscious  of  themselves,  and 
broke  away  from  the  tutelage  of  antiquity.  The  need 
was  felt  of  re-examining  all  that  had  been  handed 
down,  and  of  pushing  forward  to  something  better. 
This  assertion  of  itself  on  the  part  of  the  modern  world 
was  the  beginning  of  criticism,  in  the  larger  sense 
of  the  word.  One  part  and  another  of  the  inherited 
knowledge  was  boldly  questioned,  and  so  much  of  it 
was  found  wanting  that  men  insisted  on  putting  every- 
thing to  the  test.  The  science  and  philosophy  and 
political  theories  of  the  ancient  thinkers  were  all  in  their 
turn  subjected  to  revision.  In  the  Reformation  the  criti- 
cal spirit  assailed  the  ecclesiastical  order,  with  the  aid 
of  weapons  derived  from  scripture,  which  was  still  sup- 
posed to  be  secure  from  any  possible  challenge.  But 
finally  the  accepted  doctrine  of  scripture  was  itself  re- 

30 


The  Modern  Interpeetation  31 

examined  by  the  methods  which  had  proved  so  effective 
in  every  other  domain.  This  step  was  not  taken  without 
many  protests  and  misgivings,  and  for  a  long  time  the 
critical  tests  were  only  applied  to  the  Old  Testament, 
which  was  less  involved  with  primary  Christian  in- 
terests than  the  'New.  But  the  orthodox  champions 
of  fifty  or  sixty  years  ago  who  foretold  that  if  criticism 
were  allowed  to  invade  the  outworks  it  would  soon  find 
its  way  to  the  citadel,  have  been  justified  by  the  event. 
As  we  now  look  back  we  can  see  that  the  battle  for  the 
new  principles  was  fought  out  on  the  Old  Testament 
issue.  The  later  discussion,  though  it  has  extended  to 
questions  that  belong  to  the  very  substance  of  the 
faith,  has  excited  far  less  bitterness  than  the  forgotten 
controversies  over  the  origin  of  the  Pentateuch. 

The  critical  movement,  then,  has  gradually  taken 
possession  of  the  whole  realm  of  modern  knowledge, 
but  the  methods  by  which  it  works  have  necessarily  been 
different  in  the  different  fields.  In  the  study  of  scrip- 
ture it  has  relied  above  all  on  the  historical  method. 
With  our  modern  conception  of  the  life  of  the  race  as  a 
long,  continuous  development  it  is  hard  indeed  to  realise 
that  history,  as  we  now  understand  it,  was  almost  neg- 
lected till  recent  times.  Men  were  formerly  content  to 
look  back  on  the  past  with  little  sense  of  perspective. 
They  vaguely  took  for  granted  that  in  bygone  times  the 
world  had  been  much  the  same  as  they  saw  it  around 
them.  ISTo  one  felt  it  incongruous  that  Italian  painters 
should  throw  biblical  scenes  into  the  setting  of  a  mediae- 
val town  or  castle,  or  that  the  Greek  and  Eoman  heroes 
of  French  tragedy  should  wear  the  dress  and  utter  the 
sentiments  of  the  court  of  Versailles.  Even  the  pro- 
fessional historians  made  no  allowance  for  different 
conditions  when  they  dealt  with  the  facts  of  antiquity. 
They  passed  their  judgments  on  men  and  enterprises  in 


32  The  ITew  Testament  Today 

accordance  witli  the  standards  of  their  own  day.    Their 
histories,  more  often  than  not,  were  of  the  nature  of 
party  pamphlets,  in  which  the  issues  of  the  past  were 
confounded  with  those  of  the  present,  and  utterly  dis- 
torted.   It  is  not  till  about  the  middle  of  the  18th  cen- 
tury that  we  can  trace  the  beginnings  of  the  historical 
spirit.     The  discovery  was  made  that  the  events  of  the 
past  did  not  happen  in  a  mere  aimless  succession,  but 
grew  out  of  each  other,  and  that  each  period  had  to  be 
understood  in  its  relation  to  that  which  went  before 
and  that  which  came  afterwards.     Pormer  writers  had 
taken   the   old   social   structures   as   finished   products, 
which  they  had  only  to  describe  and  classify.     The  his- 
torian now  perceived  that  it  was  his  business  to  examine 
history  in  the  making,  and  this  new  conception  of  the 
task  of  history  involved  a  change  of  method.     It  was 
not  enough  to  repeat  the  statements  of  older  writers, 
harmonising  them  where  they  differed  and  presenting 
their  story  in  a  more  vivid  and  attractive  way.     There 
must  be  an  effort  to  get  behind  the  conflicting  state- 
ments and  to  collect  and  sift  all  evidence  however  trivial 
or  indirect  in  order  to  ascertain  the  fact  as  it  had  act- 
ually happened.     This  new  method  was  applied  with 
ever  more  fruitful  results  to  classical  history  and  to  the 
annals  of  each  of  the  great  modern  nations.     It  became 
apparent  that  countless  judgments  which  had  hitherto 
passed  without  question  had  now  to  be  reversed,  and 
that  things  which  had  appeared  inexplicable  could  be 
traced  to  quite  natural  causes.     For  a  long  time  the 
biblical  records  were  left  undisturbed,  but  inevitably 
these  also  were  brought  to  the  test  of  the  new  method. 
There  are  still  those  who  protest  that  our  religion  came 
into  being  supernaturally,  and  that  the  criticism  which 
treats  its  origin  as  a  chapter  of  history  has  gone  beyond 
its  province.    But  such  complaints  are  inadmissible,  for 


The  MoDEKiT  Inteepketation  33 

Christianity  by  its  very  nature  invites  historical  investi- 
gation. It  rests  itself  on  the  claim  that  at  a  particular 
time  a  divine  power  entered  the  world  and  co-operated 
with  the  life  of  humanity.  To  do  justice  even  to  its 
spiritual  message  we  have  therefore  to  take  account  of 
the  historical  factors,  and  they  can  only  be  determined 
by  the  methods  which  have  approved  themselves  in 
all  other  fields  of  history.  This  is  now  recognised 
by  all  fair-minded  scholars,  radical  and  conservative 
alike. 

So  for  the  modern  enquiry  the  books  of  the  'New 
Testament,  whatever  may  be  their  permanent  value,  are 
in  the  first  instance  historical  documents,  and  have  to 
be  examined  by  historical  methods.  In  former  times 
the  questions  of  the  date  and  authorship  and  immediate 
purpose  of  the  various  writings  were  of  subordinate  in- 
terest. They  were  not  neglected,  for  there  was  a  pre- 
sumption that  in  a  great  Apostle  like  Paul  or  John  the 
voice  of  the  Spirit  was  clearer  and  more  commanding 
than  in  the  secondary  teachers.  The  church  has  always 
concerned  itself  with  the  origin  of  the  books  in  order  to 
assign  them  their  relative  places  in  the  body  of  revela- 
tion. But  the  interest  of  modern  criticism  is  of  a  dif- 
ferent kind.  It  thinks  of  the  books  as  reflecting  a  num- 
ber of  the  phases  of  early  Christian  history,  and  seeks 
to  discover  in  the  light  of  them  how  our  religion  began, 
how  it  developed,  what  w^ere  the  influences  that  chiefly 
moulded  it  in  the  crucial  period  of  growth. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  any  final  conclusions  have  yet 
been  reached  on  the  various  questions  affecting  the  IN'ew 
Testament  books.  On  some  of  the  most  important  points 
opinion  is  more  divided  than  a  few  years  ago,  and  the 
general  result  of  enquiry,  in  this  field  as  in  every  other, 
has  been  to  raise  two  new  problems  for  every  one  that 
is  solved.    I^evertheless  the  broad  facts  as  to  the  origin 


34  .       The  E'ew  Testament  Today 

of  tlie  "New  Testament  have  now  been  ascertained.  It 
is  fairly  certain  that  the  earliest  of  the  writing's  are  the 
Epistles  of  Paul, — all  of  them  dating  from  the  latter 
part  of  his  missionary  career,  and  bearing,  in  one  way 
and  another,  on  the  practical  needs  of  his  mission.  The 
collection  of  Paul's  Epistles  is  supplemented  by  a  num- 
ber of  similar  letters  of  doubtful  authorship,  although 
the  names  of  Paul  himself  and  of  other  outstanding 
Apostles  were  attached  to  them  in  the  church  tradition. 
In  the  generation  following  Paul's  death  the  first  three 
Gospels  were  composed  in  their  present  form.  Mark  is 
the  earliest,  and  was  used  as  the  ground-work  of  their 
narrative  by  Matthew  and  Luke,  who  combine  it  with 
other  documents,  and  particularly  with  a  record  of  the 
teaching  of  Jesus.  The  three  Gospels,  that  of  Mark  as 
well  as  the  other  two,  are  of  the  nature  of  compilations, 
and  to  this  fact  their  paramount  value  is  due.  As  the 
work  of  secondary  witnesses,  who  wrote  many  years 
after  Jesus'  death,  they  would  carry  little  weight;  but 
it  can  be  demonstrated  that  their  immediate  authors  did 
little  more  than  piece  together,  with  varying  degrees  of 
skill,  the  records  which  had  been  current  in  the  church 
for  a  considerable  time  before.  By  establishing  this 
fact  criticism  has  performed  a  real  service  to  Christian 
faith.  Whatever  may  be  doubtful  about  the  life  of 
Jesus  we  can  now  feel  assured  that  in  the  main  we  are 
not  dealing  with  vague  legend  but  with  history,  pre- 
served in  documents  that  were  drawn  up  so  soon  after 
the  events  as  to  be  reasonably  trustworthy.  Moreover 
it  is  possible,  by  careful  analysis  and  by  comparison  of 
the  Gospels  with  each  other,  to  distinguish  between  the 
primary  and  secondary  strata  of  the  tradition.  Our  life 
of  Jesus  has  become  shorter  and  more  fragmentary  than 
it  once  was ;  but  we  need  be  troubled  no  more  with  the 
uneasv  doubt  that  it  may  all  be  a  pious  fiction.     There 


The  Modeen  Inteepeetation  35 

is  a  bed-rock  in  the  narrative,  and  within  certain  limits 
we  can  determine  it,  which  must  be  ascribed  to  the 
memory  of  first-hand  witnesses.  In  the  Synoptic  Gos- 
pels we  have  the  record  of  Jesus^  own  ministry,  but  the 
third  evangelist  has  supplemented  his  account  with  an- 
other work,  in  which  he  traces  the  course  of  the  Chris- 
tian mission  up  to  the  time  of  Paul's  arrival  at  Rome. 
Probably  in  this  book  also  he  availed  himself  of  earlier 
writings,  though  for  the  all-important  opening  period 
they  were  sadly  inadequate.  As  an  historical  record  the 
book  of  Acts  is  far  from  satisfying,  but  is  nevertheless 
of  priceless  value  since  without  it  we  should  know  next 
to  nothing  of  the  beginnings  of  the  church.  The  re- 
maining portion  of  the  'New  Testament  consists  of  five 
writinigs  assigned  by  Christian  tradition  to  the  Apostle 
John.  Modern  criticism  would  place  them  all  in  a 
period  long  after  his  death,  and  would  attribute  them 
to  at  least  two  different  authors.  Revelation  is  the  work 
of  some  one  who  still  holds  the  apocalyptic  beliefs  in 
their  literal  form,  while  the  writer  of  the  Gospel  and  1st 
Epistle  moves  in  another  world  of  thought.  He  feels 
that  if  the  Christian  message  is  to  make  a  universal  ap- 
peal the  primitive  ideas  must  be  resolved  into  those  of 
Greek  speculation  and  mysticism. 

This,  in  the  briefest  outline,  is  the  account  which 
modem  criticism  has  given  of  the  ISTew  Testament  writ- 
ings, and  it  leads  at  once  to  several  conclusions  as  to 
their  nature.  (1)  In  the  first  place  they  came  into 
existence  almost  by  accident,  in  response  to  the  imme- 
diate needs  that  arose  from  time  to  time  in  the  early 
church.  Paul  in  his  busy  life  could  seldom  visit  the 
communities  he  had  founded,  and  had  to  direct  them 
on  occasions  of  grave  perplexity  by  letter.  Teachers  of 
the  second  generation  could  no  longer  describe  the  life 
of  Jesus  from  their  own  knowledge,  and  the  Gospels 


36  The  j^eav  Testament  Today 

were  written  to  afford  them  a  basis  for  tlieir  instruc- 
tion. All  the  books  arose  in  answer  to  some  practical 
demand,  and  this,  in  no  small  measure  is  the  secret  of 
their  vitality.  They  were  not  the  work  of  secluded 
thinkers,  who  discussed  the  principles  of  the  gospel  in 
abstract  theological  fashion.  Their  teaching  has  refer- 
ence always  to  definite  situations,  and  the  world  of  the 
first  century  was  not  so  different  from  ours  but  that  we 
can  recognise  our  own  difficulties  and  problems  in  those 
which  were  encountered  then.  The  book  which  sprang 
so  directly  out  of  life  still  makes  a  living  appeal.  At 
the  same  time  our  reading  of  it  has  to  be  qualified  by 
what  we  know  of  its  origin.  We  have  no  right  to  take 
some  maxim  which  Paul  lays  down  for  his  converts  in 
Corinth  or  Galatia  and  insist  on  it  as  an  absolute  rule 
for  Christian  thought  and  conduct.  There  may  indeed 
be  a  permanent  significance  at  the  heart  of  it,  but  this 
can  only  be  grasped  when  we  allow  for  the  peculiar  con- 
ditions which  the  Apostle  had  in  his  mind.  Many  of 
the  w^orst  errors  in  the  history  of  all  Christian  societies 
have  been  due  to  this  failure  to  acknowledge  the  time 
element  in  the  !N'ew  Testament  teaching.  Slavery  has 
been  defended  because  the  Apostles  took  for  granted  the 
economic  system  of  their  day ;  celibacy  has  been  exalted 
as  the  chief  Christian  virtue  because  the  early  church 
believed  that  the  end  of  all  things  was  near,  and  that 
men  and  women  should  hold  themselves  free  from  all 
distracting  interests.  Ever  and  again  at  the  present  day 
the  wildest  social  doctrines  are  advocated  on  the  ground 
of  texts  that  were  addressed  to  a  struggling,  persecuted 
community  in  the  first  century.  To  obtain  the  guidance 
which  the  ^sTew  Testament  can  afford  us  we  must  learn 
to  read  it  historically.  Its  writers  professed  to  do  no 
more  than  apply  the  enduring  Christian  principles  to 
the  circumstances  of  their  own  time,  and  while  the  prin- 


The  Modern  Inteepeetation  37 

ciples  are  still  valid  we  have  to  fit  them  into  the  changed 
conditions  before  they  can  help  us  in  ours. 

Again,  the  writings  were  not  only  called  forth  by 
definite  needs,  but  had  almost  always  a  controversial 
motive.  It  used  to  be  assumed  that  the  'New  Testament 
came  to  us  from  a  time  before  the  church  was  rent  by 
divisions,  and  this,  for  many  people,  was  its  chief  claim 
to  authority.  They  had  here  the  absolute  weights  and 
measures  of  Christian  belief.  With  this  book  in  their 
hands  they  could  escape  from  the  turmoil  of  warring 
sects  to  the  primitive  age,  when  all  the  disciples  were 
of  one  heart  and  one  mind.  But  as  we  read  it  now,  in 
the  light  of  criticism,  we  discover,  with  a  shock  of  sur- 
prise, that  the  church  was  never  so  much  divided  as  in 
that  initial  period,  when  no  rule  of  faith  had  yet  been 
established,  and  when  all  the  scattered  communities 
stood  jealously  on  their  rights.  Paul  was  the  protagon- 
ist in  a  great  conflict  in  which  the  chief  Apostles  took 
sides  against  him.  Before  he  died  he  saw  his  own 
churches  broken  up  into  parties,  bitterly  opposed  to  one 
another.  In  all  the  New  Testament  writings,  even  in 
the  Fourth  Gospel  which  appears  to  move  in  a  serene 
atmosphere,  above  all  the  petty  quarrels  of  the  day,  we 
can  discern  a  controversial  interest.  They  may  almost 
be  regarded  as  pamphlets,  Avritten  to  support  one  side 
or  another  in  the  cause  which  had  brought  not  peace  but 
a  sword.  It  has  often  been  argued  that  writings  of 
such  a  nature  could  have  no  abiding  value,  but  this  by 
no  means  follows.  Dante  is  not  ephemeral  because  his 
poem  turns  on  a  political  issue  which  has  long  since 
been  dead.  Paradise  Lost  is  all  the  more  impressive 
because  we  can  feel  behind  it  the  passion  of  a  great 
controversy.  One  might  almost  say  that  all  the  supreme 
teachers,  from  Socrates  onwards,  have  presented  their 
thought  against  the  background  of  some  opposing  view 


38'  The  JSTew  Testament  Today 

for  wliicli  we  now  care  little.  The  'New  Testament  is 
no  less  valuable  because  it  is  so  largely  bound  up  with 
the  controversial  issues  of  the  day;  but  this  aspect  of  it 
has  always  to  be  reckoned  with  in  our  judgment  of  its 
teaching.  It  constantly  happens  that  in  their  desire  to 
combat  some  particular  form  of  error  the  writers  state 
their  thought  one-sidedly,  or  develope  it  along  special 
lines.  To  take  only  one  example,  the  Pauline  doctrine 
of  Justification  by  Faith  has  been  adopted  by  Protes- 
tant theology  as  the  very  comer-stone  of  the  gospel.  But 
can  we  be  sure  that  it  was  primary  even  for  Paul,  al- 
though he  insists  on  it  so  passionately?  At  the  time 
when  he  wrote  the  church  was  struggling  to  free  itself 
from  Judaism,  and  in  the  effort  to  prove  that  the  Law 
was  no  longer  binding  he  was  compelled  to  throw  the 
whole  weight  on  his  idea  of  faith  as  the  sole  means  of 
salvation;  but  if  he  had  lived  at  some  other  time,  or 
had  been  confronted  with  some  other  type  of  error,  he 
might  well  have  expressed  himself  differently.  Even  as 
it  is  there  are  several  of  his  Epistles,  closer  perhaps  to 
his  personal  religion  than  Romans  and  Galatians,  in 
which  the  doctrine  in  question  holds  a  quite  minor 
place.  As  the  products  of  controversy  the  ^ew  Testa- 
ment writings  almost  all  betray  a  bias  of  which  we  must 
take  account.  They  present  the  gospel  in  its  contrast 
to  other  forms  of  belief,  some  of  which  have  now  utterly 
disappeared,  and  the  writers  themselves,  in  their  calmer 
moments,  would  have  qualified  not  a  few  of  their  un- 
compromising statements.  This  has  certainly  to  be 
done  by  us  to-day,  before  we  can  frame  a  creed  on  the 
basis  of  the  ISTew  Testament.  There  has  never  yet  been 
a  conflict  in  which  the  truth  was  entirely  on  one  side, 
and  we  must  seek  to  do  justice  not  only  to  Paul  and 
John  but  to  those  whom  they  declared  in  the  heat  of 
controversy  to  be  the  enemies  of  Christ. 


The  Modekit  Inteepeetation  39 

(3)  A  still  more  important  fact  has  been  revealed 
to  us,  with  increasing  clearness,  by  the  modern  investi- 
gation. It  was  formerly  the  chief  aim  of  the  l^ew 
Testament  expositor  to  make  out  that  the  various  books, 
for  all  their  apparent  inconsistencies,  were  uniform 
throughout.  They  had  all  been  inspired  by  the  one 
divine  Spirit,  and  if  they  seemed  at  times  to  differ,  or 
even  to  contradict  each  other,  this  must  be  due  to  our 
imperfect  apprehension  of  what  they  really  meant. 
Endless  labour  was  expended  on  '^Harmonies"  in  which 
a  place  was  found  for  every  incident  and  saying  in  the 
four  Gospels.  The  doctrines  of  Paul  were  so  inter- 
preted as  to  correspond  at  every  point  with  the  Parables 
and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  The  plan  adopted  in 
the  ordinary  hand-books  of  'New  Testament  theology 
was  to  gather  texts  impartially  from  all  the  different 
books  and  to  fit  them,  like  the  fragments  of  a  puzzle 
picture,  into  one  consistent  scheme  of  teaching.  This 
attempt  to  reconcile  the  writings  has  now  been  aban- 
doned. It  is  frankly  recognised  that  they  stand  for  dif- 
ferent types  of  Christianity,  and  instead  of  trying  to 
conceal  the  differences  the  modern  scholar  is  anxious 
to  set  them  in  clear  relief.  Apart  from  the  message  of 
Jesus  himself,  as  set  forth  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels, 
there  is  the  theology  of  Paul,  the  Johannine  mysticism, 
the  idealism  of  Hebrews,  the  moralism  of  James,  the 
apocalyptic  belief  which  never  lost  its  hold  and  which 
found  its  classical  expression  in  the  book  of  Revelation. 
A  number  of  other  types  are  plainly  suggested,  ranging 
all  the  way  from  a  Christianity  which  was  hardly  dis- 
tinguishable from  Judaism  to  the  heresies  in  which  the 
gospel  was  merged  in  heathen  speculations.  The  old 
conception  of  a  Christianity  which  flowed  at  first  in  one 
straight  channel  and  broke  into  many  diverging  streams 
as  the  early  faith  declined  has  now  given  place  to  an 


40  The  N'ew  Testament  Today 

almost  contrary  one.  It  was  in  tlie  later  time  that  the 
varieties  of  Christian  opinion  began  to  coalesce,  but  the 
primitive  church  admitted  of  endless  differences.  Every 
teacher  seems  to  have  had  his  own  interpretation  of 
what  was  meant  by  the  gospel,  and  the  ISTew  Testament, 
so  far  from  reflecting  an  original  agreement  is  the  record 
of  this  diversity  of  Christian  thought.  This  is  one  of 
the  most  significant  of  the  results  which  have  now  been 
established.  In  the  light  of  it  w-e  can  perceive,  for  one 
thing,  that  the  atmosphere  of  the  primitive  days  was 
one  of  liberty,  such  as  the  church  has  never  since  en- 
joyed. Orthodoxy,  which  at  a  later  time  meant  much 
the  same  as  faith  itself,  had  no  place  in  the  earliest 
Christianity.  There  were  a  few  broad  convictions  w^hich 
every  believer  was  supposed  to  hold,  but  each  man  was 
left  free  to  ponder  on  them  and  interpret  them  for  him- 
self. The  duty  of  hnowledge,  as  we  can  see  from  Paul's 
Epistles,  was  hardly  less  important  than  that  of  faith, 
and  a  set  creed  which  relieved  a  man  of  this  duty  would 
have  seemed  like  a  quenching  of  the  Spirit,  which  was 
given  to  all.  And  when  we  look  deeper  we  can  recognise 
that  this  variety  in  early  Christian  thinking  was  inher- 
ent in  the  religion  itself.  Much  has  been  said  of  the 
simplicity  of  Jesus'  own  teaching,  and  in  this  respect  it 
has  often  been  contrasted  with  the  elaborate  systems 
which  were  built  on  it  later.  Why  can  we  not  return 
from  all  the  intricacies  of  the  creeds  to  that  divinely 
simple  gospel?  But  the  truth  is  that  the  teaching  of 
Jesus,  for  all  its  matchless  lucidity,  was  complex.  His- 
torically it  had  behind  it  the  whole  development  of  Jew- 
ish religion  and  of  those  other  religions  from  w^hich 
Judaism  had  been  borrowing  for  more  than  a  thousand 
years.  And  in  himself  Jesus  was  a  many-sided  teacher, 
far  more  so  than  Paul  or  Origen  or  those  scholastic 
doctors  w^hose  works  run  to  scores  of  volumes.    He  was 


The  Modern  Interpretation  41 

interested  in  life  and  religion  in  all  their  aspects,  and 
although  in  his  own  sayings  the  elements  are  so  ex- 
quisitely blended  that  all  has  the  appearance  of  a  seam- 
less garment,  woven  of  one  piece  throughout,  his  message 
had  hardly  been  proclaimed  to  the  world  by  its  earliest 
missionaries  when  the  complexity  came  to  light.  It 
was  made  still  more  apparent  in  the  course  of  the  Gen- 
tile mission.  A  hundred  races,  all  of  them  with  their 
diverse  modes  of  thinking,  were  mingled  together  in  the 
vast  empire,  and  the  intellectual  movement  was  as  varied 
and  active  as  in  our  owu  time.  The  new  religion  was 
thrown  into  the  midst  of  it,  and  found  its  converts 
among  philosophers  of  all  schools,  votaries  of  all  re- 
ligions, moralists,  social  reformers,  rich  and  poor. 
There  were  elements  of  its  teaching  to  which  men  of 
every  type  of  thought  responded,  and  they  gave  it  dif- 
ferent interpretations  which  were  all  alike  justified. 
The  'New  Testament  is  the  standing  witness  to  this 
diversity  of  meaning  which  was  manifest  in  the  religion 
from  the  first.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  all  the 
phases  of  Christian  belief  which  are  represented  in  the 
church  to-day  have  their  prototypes  in  this  book  which 
was  written  within  the  century  after  Jesus'  death.  The 
plain  man  is  often  bewildered  when  he  thinks  of  the 
numberless  sects  into  which  Christendom  is  divided, 
and  when  he  finds  them  all  supporting  their  opposite 
views  from  the  New  Testament.  But  the  truth  is  that 
they  all  have  this  right  of  appeal.  To  condemn  any  of 
them  as  non-Christian  is  to  condemn  the  primitive 
church  and  the  book  which  speaks  for  it. 

(4)  The  modern  enquiry  has  not  only  laid  bare  a 
great  variety  of  types  in  New  Testament  thought,  but 
has  proved  beyond  doubt  that  in  that  early  time  the 
religion  was  passing  through  a  rapid  development.  It 
was  the  old  assumption  that  no  real  change  can  have 


42  The  INew  Testame]!^t  Today 

taken  place  in  Christian  doctrine  until  the  'New  Testa- 
ment period  was  well  over.  Paul,  it  was  admitted, 
thought  somewhat  differently  from  the  earlier  Apostles, 
and  John  from  Paul;  but  these  differences  were  set 
down  partly  to  individual  temperament,  partly  to  the 
widening  and  deepening  of  Christian  experience.  As 
time  went  on  it  was  natural  that  the  church  should  ad- 
vance to  fuller  perception  of  the  meaning  of  Jesus ;  but 
that  Christianity  should  suffer  any  real  change  in  the 
course  of  two  generations  seemed  on  the  face  of  it  to 
be  out  of  the  question.  During  all  that  time  the  per- 
sonal disciples  of  Jesus  or  their  immediate  followers 
were  still  alive,  and  could  at  once  challenge  any  de- 
parture from  the  faith.  In  any  case  the  time  was  too 
short  for  anything  that  could  rightly  be  called  a  de- 
velopment. We  have  only  to  examine  the  subsequent 
history  to  see  how  gradually  any  change  was  effected 
even  in  the  details  of  belief.  One  prevailing  type  of 
doctrine  held  the  field  for  the  whole  of  the  Greek  period ; 
the  Latin  Christianity  inaugurated  by  Augustine  was 
dominant  for  a  thousand  years ;  Protestant  theology  still 
keeps  to  the  lines  marked  out  by  Luther  and  Calvin. 
Is  it  conceivable  that  in  the  course  of  a  single  life-time, 
when  so  many  restrictions  were  still  operative,  the  re- 
ligion should  in  any  serious  way  have  altered  its  char- 
acter ?  It  does,  at  first  sight,  appear  incredible,  but  we 
must  remember  that  it  is  just  in  their  early  periods  that 
movements  of  any  kind  are  most  liable  to  change.  iN'oth- 
ing  as  yet  has  taken  rigid  shape,  and  processes  which 
will  afterwards  require  generations  are  carried  through, 
almost  unnoticed,  in  a  few  weeks  or  days.  From  all 
that  is  known  of  the  early  Christian  society  we  can  infer 
that  it  was  susceptible,  in  a  peculiar  degree,  to  change. 
It  refrained  on  principle  from  all  hard  and  fast  regu- 
lation, leaving  everything  to  the  direct  control  of  the 


The  Modern  Interpretation  43 

Spirit.  It  was  divided,  almost  from  the  first,  into  a 
number  of  separate  communities,  each  of  them  follow- 
ing its  own  path,  with  little  interference  from  the  others. 
Above  all,  in  its  eagerness  to  advance  the  mission  the 
young  society  adapted  itself,  in  every  possible  way,  to 
the  varying  conditions  amidst  which  it  was  thrown. 
The  Apostle  who  became  all  things  to  all  men  if  by  any 
means  he  might  save  some  was  a  true  representative  of 
the  church,  as  it  grew  up  in  centres  so  different  as  Jeru- 
salem, Antioch,  Ephesus,  Rome.  That  the  religion  was 
greatly  changed  even  within  the  life-time  of  the  first 
disciples  is  by  no  means  improbable,  and  we  have  only 
to  read  the  l^ew  Testament  with  an  unprejudiced  mind 
to  discover  evidence  of  the  change.  We  can  see  beliefs 
which  were  at  first  central  falling  gradually  into  the 
background,  and  conceptions  which  had  no  place  at  ail 
in  the  earlier  message  becoming  ever  more  prominent. 
!N^othing,  for  example,  is  more  certain  than  that  the 
primitive  disciples  thought  of  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  who 
would  return  almost  immediately  in  visible  form  to 
judge  the  world  and  establish  a  new  order.  By  the  end 
of  the  century  the  Messianic  idea,  with  all  that  was  in- 
volved in  it,  has  fallen  out  of  sight.  Jesus  is  now  the 
eternal  Word,  who  imparts  to  his  people  his  own  divine 
nature.  The  glorious  return,  the  Judgment,  the  King- 
dom of  God  have  become  symbolical  of  inward  and 
spiritual  realities.  How  had  this  transformation  of  the 
original  beliefs  been  accomplished?  In  part,  no  doubt, 
it  was  the  result  of  a  natural  growth  from  within.  As 
men  reflected  on  the  message  of  Jesus  they  learned  to 
see  in  it  meanings  that  were  at  first  concealed,  and  to 
divest  it  of  those  traditional  forms  which  had  never  been 
more  than  a  shell  or  scaffolding.  In  part,  too,  it  was 
due  to  changed  conditions  in  the  life  of  the  church.  The 
Mttle  brotherhood  had  grown  into  a  vast  society;  the 


4:4:  The  !N"ew  Testament  Today 

early  difficulties  Had  given  place  to  others  of  a  totally 
different  kind;  the  enthusiasm  of  the  first  days  had 
waned,  and  the  primitive  hopes  had  lost  their  appeal. 
But  a  closer  study  of  the  E'ew  Testament  has  left  little 
doubt  that  the  influences  at  work  within  the  church  were 
reinforced  by  others,  still  more  decisive,  which  acted 
from  without.  'No  belief  was  held  more  firmly  by  the 
older  theology  than  that  our  religion  had  always  kept 
aloof  from  the  surrounding  Paganism.  Admittedly  it 
had  been  transplanted  at  an  early  date  to  Gentile  soil 
and  had  become  far  more  a  Gentile  than  a  Jewish  re- 
ligion ;  but  by  a  special  miracle  it  was  supposed  to  have 
grown  wholly  by  itself,  without  any  foreign  admixture. 
We  are  now  beginning  to  learn  that  no  charmed  circle 
of  this  kind  was  drawn  around  primitive  Christianity. 
While  it  conquered  the  Pagan  world  it  also  assimilated 
from  it  much  more  than  has  ever  been  suspected,  and 
this  was  in  no  small  measure  the  reason  of  its  victory. 
More  will  have  to  be  said  later  of  this  inter-action  of 
Christian  with  Pagan  ideas,  but  this,  it  is  practically 
certain,  was  the  chief  cause  of  that  rapid  change  which 
can  be  traced  in  the  l^ew  Testament. 

In  all  these  ways,  then,  our  conception  of  the  book 
has  been  modified  by  the  critical  investigation,  and  the 
fact  has  now  impressed  itself  on  the  mind  of  the  church 
at  large.  For  the  moment  there  is  undoubtedly  a  wide- 
spread sense  of  misgiving.  Men  are  disposed  to  feel 
that  the  Bible  as  they  knew  it  has  ceased  to  exist,  and 
are  doubtful  whether  they  should  turn  their  resentment 
on  the  church  which  has  held  mistaken  opinions  or  on 
the  scholars  who  have  corrected  them.  This  mood,  we 
may  be  sure,  will  only  be  temporary.  The  new  dis- 
coveries, as  has  been  shown  already,  have  not  robbed  us 
of  the  ISTew  Testament,  but  have  merely  compelled  us 
to  look  more  closely  into  our  reasons  for  prizing  it. 


JU 


The  Modern  Interpretation  45 

May  we  not  say,  indeed,  that  it  has  gained  a  larger  sig- 
nificance from  the  knowledge  we  now  possess  as  to  its 
character  ? 

(1)     For  one  thing,  it  has  become  a  more  compre- 
hensive book,  in  which  all  the  varieties  of  Christian 
thought  and  temperament  can  find  something  that  an- 
sw^ers  them.  In  every  age  there  have  been  many  natures, 
often  the  most  sincerely  religious,  which  have  been  re- 
pelled from  Christianity  by  the  effort  to  force  their 
faith  into  one  particular  channel  in  which  it  would  not 
flow.    They  were  assured  by  their  spiritual  teachers  that 
this  approved  type  of  belief  was  the  only  genuine  one, 
and  that  the  New  Testament  gave  its  sanction  to  this 
and  to  no  other.     If  they  still  held  to  Christianity  they 
did  so  with  an  acute -sense  of  discomfort,  professing 
a  faith  which  was  external  to  them  and  in  which  they 
could  not  move  with  entire  sincerity.     It  is  much  to 
have  learned  that  the  'New  Testament  is  far  broader  than 
some  of  its  too  zealous  champions  have  been  able  to 
recognise.    The  book,  as  we  can  now  read  it,  is  the  work 
of  many  minds,  which  differed  widely  from  each  other, 
and  were  not  afraid  to  think  of  the  gospel  differently. 
[N'ot  only  so,  but  we  can  see  that  this  freedom  of  inter- 
pretation was  encouraged,  as  one  of  the  best  evidences 
than  men  were  truly  following  the  guidance  of  the 
Spirit.     The  ISTew  Testament  which  was  so  long  made 
the  barrier  against  all  free  activity  of  faith,  has  now 
been  restored  to  its  rightful  place  as  the  charter  of  lib- 
erty.   We  cannot  turn  its  pages  without  being  reminded 
that  Christian  experience  can  be  of  many  kinds,  that 
Christian  thought  may  travel  by  many  paths,  separate 
from  one  another  and  yet  leading  alike  to  the  centre. 
(2)     Further,  we  have  learned  to  think  of  Chris- 
tianity as  of  something  that  grew,  and  was  responsive 
to  all  influences  that  were  able  to  unfold  and  enrich  it. 


46  The  Isbw  Testainiei^t  Today 

The  New  Testament  writers  as  we  used  to  conceive  of 
them,  were  oracular  voices,  proclaiming  a  message 
which  had  been  given  once  for  all,  and  which  had  hence- 
forth to  be  preserved  as  free  as  possible  from  all  con- 
tamination. As  we  see  them  now  they  were  men  like 
ourselves,  conscious  that  thej  knew  only  in  part.  They 
were  continually  trying  to  make  the  truth  clearer  to 
their  own  minds,  and  welcomed  the  light,  from  what- 
ever quarter  it  might  come,  which  could  illuminate  it 
for  them  more  fully.  Everywhere  in  the  book  we  are 
made  to  feel  that  the  revelation  is  still  in  process. 
From  the  knowledge  they  have  already  the  writers  are 
anxious  to  press  on  to  higher  knowledge,  and  their  one 
concern  is  to  keep  their  minds  always  open  to  new  sug- 
gestions from  the  Spirit  of  God.  We  can  no  longer  go 
to  the  'New  Testament  as  to  a  store-house  of  infallible 
texts,  but  we  need  not  treasure  it  the  less  because  it 
makes  no  claim  to  finality.  On  the  contrary,  it  marks 
out  for  us  the  road  which  our  religion  must  always  fol- 
low, and  which  it  has  never  deserted  without  losing 
something  of  its  vitality.  From  age  to  age  it  must  take 
into  it  new  elements,  and  express  itself  in  new  forms. 
To-day  more  than  ever  before  everyone  is  conscious  that 
the  doctrines  fixed  many  centuries  ago  have  ceased  to 
be  adequate,  and  that  Christianity  is  in  danger  unless 
it  can  adjust  itself  to  the  new  outlooks  and  grow  with 
the  growing  world.  The  church  can  only  be  helped  in 
its  most  urgent  task  when  it  comes  to  realise  that  the 
New  Testament  does  not  profess  to  be  more  than  a  be- 
ginning. It  was  written  by  men  who  were  moving  with 
their  time,  and  who  were  looking  forward  to  an  ever 
larger  disclosure  of  the  truth  of  Christ. 

(3)  Once  more,  the  work  of  criticism  has  taught  us 
to  discern  more  surely  what  our  religion  means,  in  its 
essential  message.    For  ages  it  was  virtually  identified 


The    MoDERX    iNTERrRETATION  47 

with  the  body  of  teaching  set  forth  in  the  E'ew  Testa- 
ment, but  this,  as  we  have  now  discovered,  was  tenta- 
tive at  the  best.  The  writers  were  trying  to  define  some- 
thing for  which  they  could  find  no  adequate  language. 
They  availed  themselves  of  symbols  and  images,  of 
traditional  beliefs  and  ideas  borrowed  from  the  current 
philosophies,  and  sought  in  this  way  to  make  the  new 
faith  intelligible  to  themselves  and  others.  As  w^e  look 
back  on  their  work  we  see  that  it  was  imperfect.  Their 
symbols,  at  this  distance  of  two  thousand  years,  have 
lost  half  their  meaning,  their  philosophies  belong  to  a 
world  of  bygone  thought.  Christianity  is  not  to  be  con- 
fused with  those  attempts  to  define  it  which  have  come 
down  to  us  in  the  "New  Testament  writings.  It  con- 
sists not  in  formal  doctrines  but  in  a  new  feeling  towards 
God,  a  new  attitude  to  life,  a  condition  of  heart  and 
will.  These  things  can  never  be  accurately  expressed  in 
terms  of  doctrine.  At  the  most  they  can  only  be  sug- 
gested, and  the  forms  in  which  they  are  so  suggested 
will  necessarily  vary  with  each  succeeding  age.  In  the 
ancient  world  men  could  best  convey  their  highest  re- 
ligious perceptions  through  a  mystical  philosophy,  in 
the  Middle  Ages  through  sacramental  rites,  in  our  times, 
perhaps,  through  the  effort  towards  social  justice  and 
well-being.  Christianity  is  something  other  than  any  of 
those  expressions  in  which  it  is  clothed  from  time  to 
time,  and  the  criticism  which  has  laid  bare  the  time 
element  in  the  IsTew  Testament  has  compelled  us  to 
grasp  this  truth.  We  have  learned  to  seek  the  reality 
of  the  ISTew  Testament  teaching  not  in  its  specific  doc- 
trines but  in  that  which  lies  behind  them, — in  the  moral 
and  religious  ideal  which  they  seek  to  interpret.  Our 
task,  as  w^e  are  coming  at  last  to  realise,  is  not  to  take 
over  the  opinions  of  those  old  teachers  ready-made,  but 
to  do  in  our  own  time  what  they  did  in  theirs.    How  can 


48  The  ^N'ew  Testament  Today 

we  possess,  with  something  of  their  fulness  and  intens- 
ity, the  Christian  spirit,  and  manifest  it  in  such  forms 
as  will  appeal  most  directly  to  the  minds  of  men  ? 

It  cannot  be  granted,  therefore,  that  the  modern  en- 
quiry, much  as  it  has  changed  our  estimate  of  the  IN'ew 
Testament,  has  impaired  its  religious  value;  yet  in  one 
respect  the  misgivings  which  are  so  widely  prevalent 
are  not  without  foundation.  The  enquiry  has  achieved 
its  ends  by  use  of  the  historical  method,  and  this  method 
is  beset  with  a  special  danger.  As  we  read  not  a  few 
of  the  more  recent  books  on  the  origins  of  Christianity 
we  cannot  but  feel  that  the  authors  have  lost  sight  of 
the  result  in  their  occupation  with  the  process.  They 
have  much  to  say  about  sources  and  influences,  about  all 
the  different  phases  of  the  development,  but  with  the 
thing  that  developed  they  do  not  concern  themselves. 
It  seems  indeed  to  dissolve  altogether  in  the  various 
factors  which  helped  to  produce  and  mould  it.  This 
is  the  weakness  of  the  historical  method  in  whatever 
field  it  is  employed.  It  tends  to  destroy  our  feeling  for 
absolute  values.  The  fact  or  idea  in  question  is  not  so 
much  explained  as  explained  away  by  the  dissection  of 
its  antecedents  and  consequences.  In  many  directions 
to-day  there  is  a  revolt  against  the  dominance  of  the 
historical  method,  with  its  tacit  assumption  that  proc- 
esses alone  are  worth  considering.  We  are  growing 
weary  of  the  type  of  scholarship  which  fastens  on  a 
great  work  of  literature  for  the  sole  purpose  of  discov- 
ering what  the  writer  borrowed,  and  how  far  he  was 
acted  on  by  the  social  and  literary  conditions  of  his  age. 
We  feel,  and  the  feeling  is  surely  a  just  one,  that  what- 
ever may  have  been  the  genesis  of  the  poem  it  has  a 
worth  of  its  own,  and  has  finally  to  be  judged  by  its 
excellence  as  a  work  of  art.  All  the  other  enquiry  is 
futile  unless  it  helps  us  somehow  to  form  this  judgment. 


The  Modern  Inteepeetation  49 

In  like  manner  it  is  not  enough  to  consider  how  great 
characters  and  great  actions  were  related  to  their  par- 
ticular historical  setting.  They  are  something  in  them- 
selves; they  excite  in  us  an  admiration,  and  inspire  us 
with  a  faith  and  courage  which  have  little  to  do  with 
the  given  surroundings  out  of  which  they  emerged. 
Most  of  all  in  the  study  of  our  religion  we  have  become 
conscious  of  the  limitations  of  the  historical  method. 
To  examine  Christianity  as  a  phase  in  the  spiritual  life 
of  the  race, — to  analyse  the  diverse  elements  of  tradi- 
tion and  thought  and  belief  that  entered  into  it, — all 
this  has  helped  us.  But  it  is  valuable  only  in  so  far  as 
a  light  is  thrown  on  the  nature  and  purpose  of  the  gos- 
pel itself.  Here  in  the  "New  Testament  we  have  a  cer- 
tain conception  of  man's  life,  in  its  ultimate  meaning; 
and  to  take  this  conception  apart,  and  describe  it  as  at 
this  point  Hebraic,  at  this  other  as  Greek  or  Oriental 
does  not  greatly  interest  us.  What  we  wish  to  know  is 
the  value  of  the  conception,  however  it  came  to  be,  and 
all  the  other  questions  must  be  subsidiary.  The  older 
method  of  ISTew  Testament  study,  with  all  its  shortcom- 
ings, was  at  least  concerned  with  the  substantive  mes- 
sage of  the  book.  It  offered  no  account,  or  a  wrong  one, 
of  how  the  different  writings  were  composed,  and  of  the 
ideas  which  coloured  their  teaching;  but  it  sought  to 
interpret  the  book  as  the  manifesto  of  Christianity.  'No 
wonder  that  men  ask  themselves  sometimes,  when  they 
are  confused  by  the  perplexities  of  modern  criticism, 
whether  it  might  not  be  well  to  return  to  the  older  way. 
It  may  indeed  be  granted  that  for  the  time  being  the 
effort  to  trace  the  history  of  the  l^ew  Testament  ideas 
has  often  made  us  oblivious  of  the  ideas  themselves; 
but  there  is  no  reason  why  the  one  method  of  study 
should  exclude  the  other.  The  life  of  a  great  man  is 
something  different  from  the  influences  that  went  to 


50  The  !N'ew  Testament  Today 

shape  it,  yet  when  we  know  what  they  were  and  how 
he  responded  to  them  we  understand  him  better.  The 
Divine  Comedy  and  the  Gothic  cathedrals  mean  more 
to  us,  even  as  works  of  art,  when  we  have  traced  their 
origin  and  considered  how  they  summed  up  their  age. 
And  the  historical  study  of  the  'New  Testament  is  nec- 
essary for  the  true  appreciation  of  its  religious  mes- 
sage. ISTo  amount  of  critical  research  is  of  much  avail 
unless  we  bring  to  our  reading  of  the  book  those  spirit- 
ual sympathies  to  which  alone  it  can  yield  its  secret. 
But  our  sense  of  its  significance  for  all  times  ought  only 
to  be  the  keener  after  we  have  watched  it  growing,  in 
its  native  soil. 


CHAPTER  III 

The  INTew  Testament  as  a  Pkoduct  of  its  Time 

THE  modern  enquiry  into  the  i^ew  Testament 
Las  now  been  in  process  for  about  a  century, 
'  and  has  reached  a  few  broad  conclusions  which 
are  no  longer  open  to  question.  It  is  certain  that  the 
writings  must  be  understood  in  their  relation  to  history, 
that  they  represent  a  number  of  different  types  of  teach- 
ing, that  they  illustrate  the  marked  change  which  came 
over  the  religion  even  in  the  life-time  of  the  Apostles. 
Within  certain  limits  the  nature  of  this  change,  and 
the  purpose  and  character  of  the  several  writings  have 
now  been  ascertained.  The  field  was  once  open  to  all 
manner  of  fanciful  guesses,  orthodox  or  heretical  in  their 
tenor,  and  occasionally  we  still  hear  belated  echoes  of 
these  vagaries.  But  they  have  ceased  to  rouse  any  feel- 
ing save  that  of  impatience  in  the  competent  scholar. 
He  is  aware  that  the  boundaries  of  rational  judgment 
on  the  ]^ew  Testament  documents  have  now  been  def- 
initely mapped  out. 

"  It  is  otherwise,  however,  when  we  turn  from  the 
broad  results  to  the  problems  in  detail.  Here,  it  must 
be  admitted,  opinion  is  still  in  flux,  and  there  is  scarcely 
a  question  about  the  writings  or  the  history  reflected  in 
them  on  which  there  is  full  agreement.  The  further 
criticism  advances  the  more  problems  it  brings  to  light, 
and  the  more  doubt  is  thrown  on  previous  solutions. 
This  has  often  been  made  an  argument  against  the 
validity  of  the  whole  critical  method.    Why,  it  is  asked, 

61 


52  The  New  Testament  Today 

slioiild  we  trouble  with,  these  new  theories  which  cancel 
out  each  other  ?  A  conclusion  put  forward  to-day  as 
the  last  word  of  scholarship  is  pretty  sure  to  be  over- 
turned to-morrow,  and  on  such  a  quicksand  of  conjec- 
ture how  are  we  to  build  our  faith  %  But  the  very  fact 
that  criticism  is  always  changing  its  position  is,  on  a 
deeper  view,  one  of  the  evidences  that  its  method  is  the 
right  one.  Finality  was  only  possible  when  the  E'ew 
Testament  was  lifted  out  of  the  sphere  of  life,  and  in- 
terpreted abstractly  by  means  of  theological  formulae. 
As  soon  as  we  set  it  again  in  relation  to  living  forces 
everything  becomes  open  to  question,  and  to  ever  more 
searching  question  as  we  get  closer  to  the  facts.  Life  is 
always  baffling ;  no  key  can  be  devised  that  will  fit  pre- 
cisely into  all  the  intricate  wards.  If  a  time  ever  comes 
when  scholars  are  in  complete  agreement  on  every  ]!^ew 
Testament  question  we  may  be  certain  that  they  have 
lost  the  true  instinct  for  their  work,  and  have  grown 
content  with  mechanical  answers  that  settle  nothing.  It 
is  indeed  the  besetting  danger  of  criticism  that  it  is 
tempted,  ever  and  again,  to  rest  in  some  given  solution 
as  final.  The  prestige  of  a  distinguished  scholar  causes 
his  view  to  be  accepted,  for  years  together;  and  the 
breaking  away  from  it,  even  in  a  false  direction,  has 
always  meant  a  return  to  reality. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  present  century  one  of  the 
points  had  been  reached  when  the  work  of  !N"ew  Testa- 
ment criticism  seemed  to  be  nearing  completion.  After 
long  debate  a  theory  of  the  primitive  age  had  been 
evolved  which  answered,  apparently,  to  the  known  facts 
and  was  fairly  consistent  and  intelligible.  To  be  sure 
there  were  a  few  difficulties  which  the  theory  failed  to 
remove,  but  the  writers  who  insisted  on  dragging  them 
forward  were  looked  on  with  disfavour,  as  troublers  of 
the  general  harmony.    Then  all  at  once  discoveries  were 


The  !N'ew  Testament  as  a  Product  oe  Its  Time  53 

made  which  had  the  effect  of  starting  the  discussion 
over  again,  almost  from  the  beginning.  It  is  strange 
indeed  that  after  a  century  of  unremitting  work  on  the 
part  of  thousands  of  scholars,  who  seemed  to  have  ex- 
hausted every  detail  of  the  subject,  these  far-reaching 
discoveries  were  still  possible.  This  experience  of  our 
own  time  is  sufficient  warning  that  we  can  never  assume 
that  the  last  word  has  been  said  on  the  'New  Testament. 
There  is  always  the  chance  that  new  light  will  be 
thrown  on  it  from  unexpected  quarters  and  compel  us 
to  revise  our  most  assured  conclusions. 

The  recent  discoveries  have  been  due,  in  no  small 
measure,  to  a  more  intensive  study  applied  to  the  New 
Testament  writings  themselves.  It  is  easy  to  ridicule 
the  work  of  the  painful  commentator,  who  brings  his 
microscope  to  bear  on  every  phrase  and  word,  almost 
on  every  letter  of  scripture,  with  little  regard,  it  might 
often  seem,  to  the  larger  issues.  But  this  labour,  like 
that  of  the  chemist  on  his  atoms  and  molecules,  must 
always  prepare  the  way  for  the  great  advances.  Some 
of  the  cardinal  problems  of  l^ew  Testament  history  and 
thought  are  still  awaiting  their  solution  until  we  can 
ascertain  more  definitely  what  the  writers  meant  by 
particular  words. 

But  the  analysis  of  the  documents  themselves  would 
have  carried  us  little  further  had  it  not  been  for  the 
help  which  came  from  the  outside.  It  is  probably  to 
Jhis  extraneous  aid  that  we  must  now  chiefly  look  for 
the  illumination  of  the  New  Testament,  and  in  this  re- 
spect fortune  has  been  kind  to  us  in  recent  years.. 
Manuscripts,  inscriptions,  monuments,  innumerable 
relics  of  the  ancient  world  have  been  coming  to  light, 
and  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  this  enrichment 
of  our  knowledge  is  only  beginning.  The  Eastern  coun- 
tries which  the  war  has  now  brought  within  the  com- 


54  The  New  Testament  Today 

pass  of  civilisation  have  treasures  still  undreamed  of  to 
yield  up  to  the  scholar.  But  v^e  must  never  forget  that 
it  is  the  investigation  of  the  'New  Testament  itself 
which  has  enabled  us  to  profit  from  all  this  added 
knowledge.  For  generations  men  had  before  them  a 
great  mass  of  evidence  surviving  from  the  early  cen- 
turies which  they  never  thought  of  using.  They  were 
possessed  with  the  idea  that  the  I^ew  Testament  stood 
wholly  by  itself,  so  utterly  apart  from  the  age  out  of 
which  it  sprung  that  the  contemporary  witness  was  not 
worth  examining.  Our  interest  in  that  age  and  our 
insight  into  the  records  it  has  left  us  have  now  been 
sharpened  by  what  w©  know  of  the  true  nature  of  the 
!N"ew  Testament.  Things  that  were  nothing  formerly 
but  additional  lumber  for  the  museums  are  so  many 
fragments  of  that  old  world  which  gave  shape  to  Chris- 
tianity, and  we  examine  them  with  eager  attention  for 
the  clues  they  may  afford  to  still  vital  problems. 

For  the  modern  scholar,  then  the  IsTew  Testament  is 
a  product  of  its  own  age,  and  he  has  learned  to  explore 
the  history  and  thought  and  religion  of  that  age  for 
the  purpose  of  understanding  it.  His  interest  has  nat- 
urally been  drawn,  in  a  peculiar  degree,  to  the  life  of 
the  Jewish  people  in  the  time  of  Christ  and  the  period 
immediately  before.  It  was  one  of  the  gravest  errors 
of  the  older  scholarship  to  connect  the  ISTew  Testament 
directly  with  the  old,  paying  no  heed  whatever  to  the 
long  interval  between,  in  which  Jewish  religion  had 
undergone  some  momentous  changes.  The  teaching  of 
Jesus,  as  ever^^one  would  now  acknowledge,  was  affected 
not  merely  by  the  Old  Testament  but  in  a  still  great 
measure  by  the  later  Judaism.  Writings  which  were 
formerly  branded  as  apocryphal  and  were  passed  over 
as  worthless  because  they  arose  long  after  Old  Testa- 
ment times  have  now  assumed  a  first-rate  importance. 


The  ITew  Testament  as  a  Peoduct  of  Its  Time  55 

The  interest  in  this  later  Jewish  literature  has  called 
attention  to  numerous  other  documents  of  the  same  kind 
which  had  fallen  entirely  out  of  sight.  As  a  result  of 
this  new  line  of  study  the  Gospels  can  now  be  read  in 
the  light  of  contemporary  ideas  and  beliefs.  Instead  of 
interpreting  Jesus  by  creeds  which  were  formulated 
long  afterwards,  and  which  he  himself  would  not  have 
understood,  we  can  see  what  his  teaching  meant  to  the 
people  of  his  own  land  and  day.  Some  aspects  of  it 
have  thus  become  intelligible  for  the  first  time. 

A  closer  attention  has  been  directed  not  only  to  the 
Jewish  but  to  the  early  Christian  literature.  It  has 
been  the  custom  to  draw  an  arbitrary  line  between  the 
writings  comprised  in  the  N^ew  Testament  and  those 
which  had  been  excluded,  although  they  dated  from  the 
same  age  or  shortly  afterwards.  But  we  now  realise 
that  the  canonical  books  were  selected  for  no  other  rea- 
son than  their  superior  excellence.  The  whole  litera- 
ture must  be  taken  together  if  we  would  fully  under- 
stand the  world  of  thought  in  which  the  writers  of  the 
JSTew  Testament  moved.  Even  the  writings  which  were 
condemned  as  heretical  belong  to  the  same  s^eneral  move- 
ment,  and  serve  to  illustrate  not  a  few  of  the  tenden- 
cies which  can  be  discerned  in  Paul  and  John.  By 
fortunate  accident  a  number  of  lost  works  of  early 
Christian  literature  have  been  recovered,  just  at  the 
time  when  scholarship  had  learned  to  value  them,  and 
a  vigilant  watch  is  being  kept  for  others.  For  purposes 
of  investigation  the  distinction  of  writings  within  and 
outside  of  the  Canon  has  now  been  abandoned.  The 
'New  Testament  books  for  the  modern  scholar  are  only 
the  outstanding  peaks  of  a  large  literature,  which  must 
be  considered  as  a  whole  before  we  can  justly  estimate 
the  meaning  of  the  Christian  movement. 

But  perhaps  the   chief  illumination  has   come   not 


56  The  jN'ew  Testamei^t  Today 

from  Jewish  or  specifically  Christian  sources,  but  from 
our  larger  knowledge  of  the  conditions  of  life  and  re- 
ligion in  the  first  two  centuries.  Apart  from  the  su- 
preme fact  that  it  saw  the  birth  of  Christianity,  this 
period  has  always  fascinated  the  historian.  It  was  the 
culminating  age  of  the  ancient  world.  JSTearly  all  the 
elements  of  later  civilisation  can  be  traced  back  to  it, 
and  in  some  w^ays  its  life  was  richer  and  more  har- 
monious than  that  of  any  subsequent  time.  But  it  has 
hitherto  been  known  to  us  almost  wholly  from  the  classi- 
cal writers,  who  refiected  the  mind  and  habits  of  a  cul- 
tivated minority.  Only  within  our  own  time  have  we 
grown  fully  conscious  that  there  was  also  a  life  of  the 
common  people,  more  interesting  in  itself  than  that  of 
the  privileged  few,  and  far  more  significant  in  its  bear- 
ing on  the  Christian  mission.  It  was  among  the  ar- 
tisans, the  tradesmen,  the  soldiers,  the  varied  population 
that  crowded  the  poorer  districts  of  the  great  cosmo- 
politan cities,  that  the  new  religion  made  its  most 
notable  progress.  If  we  knew  more  of  this  obscure 
life  which  has  hardly  left  a  record  in  the  formal  his- 
tories, much  that  is  dark  in  Christian  development 
would  be  explained.  Within  the  last  generation  this 
missing  knowledge  has  been  flowing  in  upon  us  from 
many  sides,  and  it  is  now  possible  to  construct  some- 
thing like  a  true  picture  of  that  vanished  world  in 
which  Christianity  achieved  its  first  victories.  By  this 
means  our  previous  conceptions  have  not  only  been 
filled  out  and  vivified,  but  in  some  important  respects 
have  been  transformed.  It  used,  for  instance,  to  be 
taken  for  granted  that  the  period  was  one  of  moral  and 
spiritual  decay,  in  consequence  of  the  breaking  up  of 
the  old  religious  sanctions.  From  numberless  passages 
of  the  literature  it  was  clear  that  beliefs  which  had  once 
been  vital  had  now  become  nothing  but  artistic  ma- 


The  ;N'ew  Testament  as  a  Peoduct  of  Its  Time  57 

terial,  or  were  held  up  to  oj)eii  derision.     The  success 
of    Christianity    was    commonly    explained    from   this 
spiritual  deadness  which  had  fallen  upon  the  world. 
Men  were  conscious  everywhere  of  a  great  void  in  their 
lives,  and  welcomed  the  inrush  of  the  new  faith  which 
replenished  it.     This  explanation  was  on  the  face  of  it 
improbable,  for  in  all  ages  God  has  been  found  of  those 
who  sought  Him.     A  mood  of  indifference  or  blarik: 
scepticism  has  never  yet  been  responsive  to  a  religious 
message.     We  have  now  discovered  that  these  first  cen- 
turies, so  far  from  being  spiritually  dead,  marked  an 
age  of  revival.     The  classical  Paganism  had  indeed  lost 
its  hold  on  the  people,  but  its  place  had  been  taken  by 
religions  which  had  come  in  from  the  East,  with  im- 
pressive rites  and  symbols,  and  had  blended  themselves 
with  the  high  speculations  on  which  the  Greek  mind 
had  been  exercised  since  Plato.     The  world  was  full  of 
strange  cults,  linked  on  the  one  hand  with  primitive 
nature-worship,  and  on  the  other  with  a  mystical  and 
often  a  profound  philosophy,  and  this  re-birth  of  re- 
ligion was  one  of  the  grand  characteristics  of  the  age. 
Just    as    there    are   periods   of    discovery,    of   literary 
achievement,  of  political  progress,  so  there  are  periods 
when  the  religious  impulse  is  peculiarly  active.     !N"o 
one  has  yet  accounted  for  these  tidal  movements  in  the 
spiritual  life  of  the  race,  and  the  ultimate  causes  will 
probably  lie  always  beyond  our  knowledge.    But  all  ex- 
perience proves  that  in  religion,  as  elsewhere,  there  are 
ages  of  revival,  and  it  can  hardly  now  be  doubted  that 
the  first  century  was  one  of  them.    Christianity  won  its 
triumph  because  it  appeared  in  such  an  age. 

Of  late  years,  therefore,  we  have  learned  to  read  the 
ISTew  Testament  in  a  larger  context  than  was  formerly 
thought  necessary,  and  much  in  the  record  has  taken  on 
a  new  significance.  In  two  directions  more  especially 
the  older  conclusions  have  been  completely  changed. 


58  The  ]^ew  Testamext  Today 

(1)  On  tlie  one  hand,  the  teaching  of  Jesus  him- 
self has  been  interpreted  along  new  lines.  The  scholars 
of  the  last  generation  had  satisfied  themselves  that  he 
was  the  leader  in  a  great  prophetic  revival,  and  that  his 
primary  interest  was  in  ethical  and  spiritual  ideas.  In 
order  to  present  them  more  vividly  he  availed  himself 
of  certain  current  conceptions,  filling  them,  at  the  same 
time,  with  a  new  content.  He  announced  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  which  meant  for  him  at  once  an  inner  harmony 
wdth  God's  will  and  a  new  social  order,  which  would 
realise  the  divine  will  on  earth.  As  the  inaugurator  of 
this  Kingdom  he  called  himself  the  Messiah,  although 
he  attached  a  new  sense  to  this  traditional  Jewish  title. 
The  forms  in  which  he  conveyed  his  teaching  were  thus 
regarded  as  consciously  symbolic  or  imaginative,  and 
the  chief  aim  of  the  interpreters  was  to  determine  the 
meaning  which  he  sought  to  express  by  them.  But  now, 
with  our  fuller  knowledge  of  the  Jewish  apocalyptic 
literature,  it  has  become  impossible  to  understand  the 
Gospel  teaching  in  this  metaphorical  sense.  It  is  ap- 
parent that  for  at  least  a  century  before  the  time  of 
Christ  the  hopes  of  the  Jewish  people  were  directed  to 
a  new  age  or  Kingdom  of  God,  which  is  described  in 
the  same  language  as  we  find  in  the  Gospels.  There  was 
a  belief  that  the  present  order  of  the  world,  with  all  its 
evil  and  sorrow,  would  shortly  come  to  an  end;  the  liv- 
ing and  dead  would  be  brought  up  for  judgment  before 
God,  or  the  Messiah  who  would  represent  Him;  the 
righteous  would  be  set  apart  for  eternal  life  in  a  reno- 
vated world.  These  conceptions  meet  us  constantly  in 
writings  which  belong  to  the  time  of  Jesus,  and  can  it 
be  supposed  that  he  mystified  his  hearers  by  applying 
the  familiar  terms  in  some  new  esoteric  sense,  known 
only  to  himself?  Must  we  not  rather  assume  that  his 
message,  up  to  a  certain  point,  was  the  same  as  that  of 


The  'Nbw  Testament  as  a  Peoduct  of  Its  Time  59 

the  apocalyptic  writers?     He  took  up  the  expectation 
of  a  new  age,  and  declared  that  it  was  just  at  hand,  and 
that  he  himself  would  be  in  some  way  instrumental  to 
its  coming.     In  view  of  the  great  crisis  which  he  saw 
approaching  he  called  on  men  to  conform  their  wills  to 
that  will  of   God  which  would  alone  prevail  in  the 
future.    That  Jesus  fell  in  with  those  apocalyptic  ideas 
of  his  time  is  now  conceded  by  most  modern  scholars, 
and  his  teaching  can  certainly  be  best  explained  when 
it  is  set  against  this  background.     This  is  true  not  only 
of  his  direct  references  to  the  Judgment,  the  coming  of 
the  Son  of  man,  the  eternal  life  appointed  to  the  right- 
eous, but  even  of  the  purely  ethical  and  religious  teach- 
ing.    He  does  not  speak  as  an  abstract  moralist,  laying 
down  the  principles  of  the  moral  law.     He  has  always 
before  his  mind  the  picture  of  a  new  order  of  things, 
shortly  to  be  established,  and  seeks  to  bring  men  into 
such  a  condition  of  heart  and  will  that  when  it  comes 
tbey  will  not  be  strange  to  it.     To  many  people,  cer- 
tainly, it  has  come  with  something  of  a  shock  to  think 
of  Jesus  as  accepting  those  contemporary  beliefs  which 
have  become  to  our  minds  so  fantastic.     Can  it  be  that 
he  was  mistaken  as  to  the  nature  of  the  Kingdom,  and 
the  time  and  manner  in  which  it  would  come  ?     Can  it 
be  that  he  conjoined  his  teaching  with  those  strange  out- 
worn conceptions,  and  if  so  must  we  not  admit  that  i<  - 
value  for  us  is  gravely  diminished?     But  these  objc 
tions  are  not  hard  to  answer.     If  Jesus  was  to  impa 
his  message  to  men  at  all  it  was  inevitable  that  L" 
should  employ  forms  of  thought  which  would  in  course 
of  time  grow  obsolete.     That  has  been  the  fate  of  all 
great  thinkers,  and  the  value  of  their  work  is  not  on 
that  account  impaired.    For  that  part,  it  was  fortunate 
indeed  that  the  forms  offered  to  Jesus  were  the  loose, 
imaginative  ones  of  Jewish  apocalyptic,  and  not  the 


GO  The  ^N'ew  Testament  Today 

philosophical  categories  which  were  adopted  later.  His 
language,  though  much  of  it  has  lost  its  literal  import, 
has  the  advantage  which  the  language  of  sjmhol  always 
has  over  that  of  abstract  thought.  The  definitions  of 
the  creeds  have  grown  out  of  date,  along  with  the  phil- 
osophies which  produced  them,  but  each  new  age  has 
been  able  to  attach  its  own  meaning  to  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  We  can  still  repeat  the  prayer  of  Jesus,  ''Thy 
Kingdom  Come",  without  any  feeling  that  it  echoes  the 
aspiration  of  a  bygone  time.  Our  longings  for  moral 
perfection,  closer  fellowship  with  God,  peace  and  justice 
in  the  world  around  us,  can  all  be  expressed  in  the  form 
employed  by  Jesus.  The  form,  in  any  case,  must  not 
be  confounded  with  the  substance.  Jesus  looked  for- 
ward, like  the  apocalyptic  teachers,  to  a  visible  con- 
summation of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  but  the  Kingdom, 
as  he  conceived  it,  was  not  merely  the  good  time  com- 
ing, when  the  earth  would  be  more  fruitful  and  beauti- 
ful, and  men  would  be  set  free  from  all  that  now  darkens 
and  oppresses  them.  He  thought  of  the  Kingdom  in  its 
spiritual  aspects  as  that  condition'  of  things  when  men 
would  know  God  and  obey  Him  gladly  and  willingly. 
The  apocalyptic  beliefs  were  like  a  screen  against  which 
he  could  project  his  conception  of  the  ideal  life  and  the 
Fatherly  will  of  God.  It  cannot  be  said  that  the  per- 
manent value  of  Jesus'  teaching  and  the  greatness  of 
his  personality  have  in  any  way  grown  less  because  we 
understand  more  fully  the  mode  in  which  he  envisaged 
his  supreme  task.  We  have  indeed  become  aware  of 
the  time  element  in  which  he  worked,  and  must  allow 
for  this  disturbing  factor  in  our  estimate  of  his  mes- 
sage. But  the  message  itself  remains  what  it  always 
was,  and  if  anything  is  more  intelligible  and  more  real 
because  we  can  set  it  against  its  historical  background. 
(2)     More  important,  in  some  respects,   and  more 


The  'N:ew  Testament  as  a  Product  of  Its  Time  61 

subversive  of  all  traditional  ideas  has  been  the  discovery 
that  from  an  early  time  our  religion  was  strongly 
affected  by  v^hat  we  have  been  wont  to  regard  as  heath- 
enism. It  has  commonly  been  supposed  that  Chris- 
tianity made  its  way  into  the  Gentile  world  as  an 
exotic  religion.  Paul  and  the  other  Apostles  have  been 
compared  to  missionaries  who  in  our  day  proceed  to 
India  or  China  with  a  message  so  foreign  to  the  mind 
of  the  people  that  something  like  a  new  language  has 
to  be  devised  for  the  purpose  of  imparting  it.  But  it 
has  now  been  realised  that  the  early  teachers,  although 
for  the  most  part  of  Jewish  race,  were  themselves  chil- 
dren of  the  civilisation  which  they  set  out  to  transform. 
They  had  been  moulded  by  the  influences  not  only  of 
the  Old  Testament  and  the  Synagogue  but  of  the  Roman 
world  in  which  they  lived.  It  is  not  necessary  to  sup- 
pose that  they  were  versed  in  Greek  literature  and 
philosophy,  or  had  made  direct  acquaintance  with  the 
prevailing  cults.  In  every  age  the  doctrines  of  the 
schools  find  their  way  ere  long  into  the  market-place, 
and  in  the  first  century,  with  its  ardour  for  discussion 
and  keen  intellectual  interests,  this  diffusion  of  ideas 
was  probably  more  general  than  among  ourselves. 

The  conviction  that  early  Christianity  had  deeper 
roots  in  the  life  of  the  time  than  had  hitherto  been 
suspected  was  first  brought  home  to  scholars  by  linguis- 
tic study.  The  Greek  of  the  'New  Testament  differs 
widely  from  classical  Greek  in  structure,  grammar, 
vocabulary,  and  the  inference  had  always  been  drawn 
that  it  must  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  jargon,  employed 
by  Jews  who  had  to  express  themselves  in  an  alien 
tongue  while  they  thought  in  their  own.  But  modern 
exploration,  especially  in  Egypt,  has  brought  to  light  a 
host  of  documents  belonging  to  the  common  life  of  the 
people, — private  and  business  letters,  school  exercises, 


62  The  !N'ew  Testament  Today 

casual  memoranda, — which  are  evidently  written  in  the 
ordinary  colloquial  language,  and  are  marked  by  just 
the  same  turns  of  expression  as  we  find  in  the  'New 
Testament.  The  fact  has  now  been  placed  beyond  all 
doubt  that  it  is  the  literary  writers  of  the  time  who  use 
a  jargon,  in  their  desire  to  hark  back  to  the  models  of 
the  classical  age,  while  in  the  ISTew  Testament  we  have 
the  living  idiom.  In  its  outward  form,  at  least,  it  is 
not  an  exotic  work,  thrust  by  a  foreign  race  on  a  world 
to  which  it  can  only  have  been  half  intelligible.  Paul 
wrote  to  the  Corinthians  and  Galatians  in  just  the  same 
language  as  his  readers  themselves  made  use  of  in  their 
everyday  life. 

In  view  of  this  fact  the  question  inevitably  arose,  if 
it  was  so  with  the  language  might  it  not  be  the  same 
with  the  contents  ?  An  explanation  began  to  offer  itself 
for  numerous  features  in  I^ew  Testament  thought 
which  had  escaped  notice,  or  which  had  baffled  all  en- 
quiry so  long  as  the  book  was  considered  a  purely  Jew- 
ish product.  Why,  for  instance,  had  sacramental  ideas 
asserted  themselves  so  early  in  this  spiritual  religion? 
How  had  the  belief  in  Jesus  as  not  merely  the  Messiah 
but  an  actual  divinity  grown  up  so  easily  in  the  course 
of  a  single  generation?  Why  had  Christian  teachers 
laid  such  an  emphasis  on  hnowledge  as  an  essential  ele- 
ment in  the  higher  life  ?  Above  all,  how  had  the  mys- 
tical strain  found  entrance  into  Christianity?  For 
Jesus,  as  for  Paul,  the  grand  aim  of  life  is  fellowship 
with  God,  but  it  is  a  moral  fellowship.  To  be  one  with 
God  is  to  live  in  harmony  with  God's  will,  and  every 
act  of  love,  duty,  goodness  is  a  participation  in  the 
divine  nature.  With  Paul  and  the  Fourth  Evangelist 
this  moral  oneness  with  God  becomes  a  oneness  of  being. 
Our  human  nature  is  different  in  kind  from  the  nature 
of   God,   but   through  union  with    Christ   a   mystical 


The  Kew  Testament  as  a  Peoduct  of  Its  Time  G3 

change  is  effected  \^hereby  a  man  is  born  again  into  a 
divine  life. 

These  new  ideas  involved  a  profound  departure  from 
the  original  Christian  teaching,  and  gave  the  main 
direction  to  the  later  theology.  Whence  were  they  de- 
rived ?  It  was  taken  for  granted,  until  a  few  years 
ago,  that  they  were  the  special  contribution  of  Paul, 
who  boldly  took  the  gospel,  as  he  had  received  it  from 
the  earlier  Apostles,  and  re-cast  it  with  the  aid  of  novel 
speculations  which  had  arisen  in  his  own  mind.  But 
the  ideas  cannot  have  been  peculiar  to  Paul,  for  they 
appear  in  writings  which  appear  to  have  owed  little  or 
nothing  to  PauFs  influence.  Indeed  the  whole  theory 
that  Paul  was  a  daring  innovator  who  wilfully  wrenched 
the  gospel  from  its  authentic  form  is  almost  certainly 
mistaken.  It  would  be  far  more  just  to  regard  him  as 
the  grand  conservative  force  in  the  early  church.  The 
changes  which  are  reflected  in  his  thought  would  have 
come  about  anyhow,  and  were  most  likely  in  process  be- 
fore he  appeared;  but  if  it  had  not  been  for  him  they 
might  have  been  carried  through  in  such  a  manner  as 
almost  to  obliterate  the  genuine  Christian  teaching. 
This  was  what  actually  happened  a  little  later  in  the 
Gnostic  movement.  Paul,  with  his  profoundly  Chris- 
tian spirit,  was  able  to  grasp  the  inner  meaning  of  the 
gospel,  and  to  preserve  it  and  even  to  express  it  more 
truly  while  investing  it  with  a  new  form.  Instead  of 
breaking  the  continuity  he  was  the  chief  link  between 
the  later  Christianity  and  Jesus. 

How,  then,  did  those  new  conceptions  come  to  en- 
croach on  the  primitive  gospel  ?  The  answer  is  un- 
doubtedly to  be  found  when  we  turn  to  the  world  out- 
side of  Judaism,  and  discover  the  same  conceptions 
widely  prevalent  in  the  thought  of  the  time.  The  gos- 
pel had  laid  hold  of  teachers,  Paul  and  many  others, 


6-i  The  Xew  Testa:\iejn^t  Today 

who  were  touched  by  the  Hellenistic  culture  and  fell 
naturally  into  its  modes  of  thinking.  A  great  many 
modern  scholars  would  assign  the  new  ideas  more  def- 
initely to  those  strange  cults  which  had  invaded  Europe 
from  the  East,  and  which  had  been  so  potent  in  awak- 
ening the  dormant  religious  feeling  of  the  age.  They 
had  all  sprung  from  a  primitive  nature-worship,  and 
turned  invariably  on  the  same  central  motive.  What 
they  offered  to  men  was  a  redemption  from  the  sorrow- 
ful earthly  conditions,  by  means  of  union  with  a  divin- 
ity who  had  passed  through  death  into  a  new  life. 
Much  in  the  Christian  teaching,  esj)ecially  as  set  forth  by 
Paul,  bears  at  first  sight  a  startling  resemblance  to  the 
beliefs  that  had  grown  around  the  worship  of  Attis  and 
Osiris;  but  our  knowledge  is  far  too  slight  to  bear  the 
weight  of  hypothesis  which  has  often  been  reared  on  it. 
Too  much  has  been  made  of  coincidences  of  language, 
similarity  in  rites  and  customs,  even  of  undoubted  af- 
finities of  thought.  It  is  forgotten  that  in  every  period 
there  are  watch-words  and  postulates  which  are  common 
to  all  schools  of  opinion.  A  few  centuries  hence  the 
historian  will  doubtless  group  together  movements  of 
our  time  w^hich  we  now  think  of  as  utterly  antagonistic. 
Tolstoi  and  Kipling  and  William  James  will  stand  side 
by  side  as  men  who  all  taught  the  same  thing  with 
shades  of  difference,  and  their  mutual  borrowings  will 
be  confidently  traced  out.  I^or  will  the  resemblances 
be  merely  fanciful,  for  no  two  thinkers  can  live  in  the 
same  age  without  far  more  in  common  than  they  or 
their  contemporaries  can  ever  guess.  We  cannot  won- 
der if  Christianity,  growing  up  side  by  side  with  those 
other  religions,  was  in  many  respects  akin  to  them,  al- 
though it  looked  on  them  with  abhorrence.  A  Socialist 
club  of  to-day  may  be  virulently  opposed  to  the  church, 
and  yet  borrows  from  it  at  every  point  in  the  very  act 


The  New  Testament  as  a  Peoduct  of  Its  Time  65 

of  denouncing  it.  People  hard  of  hearing  have  been 
known  to  sit  devoutly  through  a  Socialist  meeting, 
under  the  impression  that  they  were  at  a  church  service. 
So  from  the  hostility  with  which  the  early  Christians 
regarded  Paganism  we  cannot  infer  that  they  were  not 
influenced,  much  more  than  they  knew,  by  its  thought 
and  worship.  The  wonder  rather  is  that  in  an  age  when 
all  religions  tended  to  merge  together  Christianity  so 
faithfully  preserved  its  distinctive  character.  All 
through  the  ISTew  Testament,  representing  as  it  does  so 
many  varieties  of  teaching,  we  meet  with  the  same 
fundamental  beliefs,  the  same  unmistakeable  type  of 
moral  and  religious  temper.  A  religion  which  main- 
tained so  tenacious  a  life  of  its  own  can  never  have 
been  in  much  danger  of  being  absorbed  into  any  rival 
cult. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  influence  on  Chris- 
tianity of  the  so-called  mystery-religions  the  one-sided 
emphasis  which  has  been  laid  on  it  by  many  modern 
writers  has  obscured  the  real  significance  of  the  change 
that  set  in  after  the  beginning  of  the  Gentile  mission. 
The  new  religion  was  affected  not  merely  by  one  or  an- 
other of  the  contemporary  forms  of  belief  but  by  a 
force  which  was  all  the  more  subtle  and  powerful  be- 
cause it  did  not  proceed  from  any  specific  movement. 
That  world  of  the  first  century  in  which  the  currents 
of  Eastern  and  Western  life  were  so  strangely  mingled 
had  developed  a  mood  of  thought  which  was  peculiarly 
its  own.  In  the  poetry  of  Virgil,  in  the  philosophy  of 
the  later  Stoics,  no  less  than  in  the  mystery-religions, 
we  find  this  mood,  in  which  speculation  is  shot  through 
with  mystical  sentiment,  in  which  the  chief  goal  of  life 
is  sought  in  a  redemption  from  the  sin  and  misery  in- 
herent in  earthly  conditions.  As  it  rooted  itself  in 
Gentile   soil    Christianity   was   impregnated   with    this 


66  The  J^ew  Testament  Today 

spirit  of  the  age.  To  explain  its  later  development 
from  some  particular  Gentile  influence  is  just  as  mis- 
leading as  to  interpret  it  wholly  from  Judaism.  We 
have  to  allow  for  all  the  manifold  influences  that  were 
at  work  in  that  age  of  ferment,  and  which  drew  the 
new  religion  into  the  broad  spiritual  movement  of  the 
time.  Before  a  century  was  past  men  had  almost  for- 
gotten that  Christianity  had  sprung  from  Judaism.  The 
conceptions  of  the  Greek  thinkers,  the  axioms  of  Roman 
law  and  ethics  had  become  so  much  a  part  of  it  that 
when  earnest  Gentiles  passed  into  the  church  they  were 
hardly  conscious  of  a  serious  break.  Justin  and  Clem- 
ent and  Tertullian  resumed  as  Christians  the  train  of 
thought  which  had  occupied  them  as  Pagans,  except 
that  they  now  took  their  guidance  from  the  Christian 
beliefs. 

To  many  minds  this  discovery  that  our  religion  has 
so  largely  borrowed  from  alien  sources  has  been  more 
disquieting  than  any  other.  In  so  far  as  it  was  touched 
by  what  they  have  always  regarded  as  heathenism,  the 
gospel,  they  feel,  must  have  suffered  an  adulteration. 
Scholars  who  Avillingly  admit  that  the  J^ew  Testament 
writers  were  indebted  to  psalmists  and  prophets,  to 
Rabbis  and  apocalyptists,  even  to  a  Hellenistic  Jew  like 
Philo,  have  recourse  to  every  ingenious  shift  to  explain 
away  the  plainest  evidence  of  a  debt  to  Pagan  teachers. 
This  attitude  of  mind  can  only  be  set  down  to  the  sur- 
viving effect  of  obsolete  theories  of  inspiration.  It  is 
assumed  that  God  conveyed  His  truth  along  particular 
channels,  and  that  anything  which  came  otherwise  must 
necessarily  be  false  or  imperfect.  But  the  light  that 
lighteth  every  man  was  surely  reflected  in  Greek  phil- 
osophy and  Oriental  piety  no  less  than  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. A  truer  estimate  of  our  religion  will  some  day 
acknowledge  that  its  greatness  consists  not  only  in  what 


The  ]N"ew  Testament  as  a  Product  of  Its  Time  67 

it  gave  from  itself  but  in  what  it  rescued.  Holding  to 
its  own  beliefs  it  yet  attracted  and  made  part  of  itself 
all  that  was  true  and  noble  in  the  spiritual  life  of  the 
ancient  world.  Thoughts  and  aspirations  of  the  highest 
value  which  were  entangled  in  the  old  idolatries  and 
would  have  perished  with  them,  were  given  a  place  in 
the  message  of  Christ,  and  were  so  transmitted  to  enrich 
the  life  of  humanity  in  all  times. 

That  Christianity  absorbed  many  elements  from  the 
Pagan  culture,  and  had  begun  to  do  so  even  in  ISTew 
Testament  times,  can  hardly  be  doubted;  but  this  by 
no  means  implies,  as  one  might  gather  from  some  recent 
books,  that  it  drew  almost  everything  from  foreign 
sources.  The  view  is  often  put  forward  that  Jesus  him- 
self gave  little  more  than  the  initial  impulse.  That  he 
lived  and  died,  and  inaugurated  a  movement  which  was 
continued  after  his  death,  is  granted,  since  the  tradition 
on  these  points  is  too  strong  to  be  overturned.  But  it 
is  maintained  that  the  simple  Christianity  which  was 
taught  in  the  church  at  Jerusalem  w^as  only  a  nucleus, 
which  massed  around  it,  by  a  series  of  surprising  acci- 
dents, the  most  fruitful  elements  in  the  general  thought 
of  the  time.  Greek  philosophy,  the  mysticism  of  the 
East,  the  Stoic  morality  were  gradually  attached  in  this 
way  to  the  new  message,  and  became  part  of  its  sub- 
stance. Before  the  world  could  realise  what  had  hap- 
pened the  call  to  repentance  given  forth  by  Jesus  had 
developed  into  a  complex  religion,  with  a  profound 
theology  and  elaborate  rites.  This  religion  took  its 
name  from  Christ,  but  if  things  had  turned  out  a  little 
differently  Attis  or  Mithra  might  have  been  accepted 
as  the  object  of  faith,  and  the  result  would  have  been 
much  the  same.  The  world  was  ready  for  a  synthesis 
of  all  the  beliefs  which  had  been  accumulating  for  cen- 
turies past,  and  nothing  was  needed  but  some  impres- 


GS  The  ^N^ew  Testament  Today 

sive  figure  around  whom  they  might  crystallise.  This 
view  of  the  rise  of  Christianity  has  found  favour  with 
some  eminent  writers  of  our  time,  but  it  makes  ship- 
wreck on  several  decisive  argTiments. 

(1)  There  is  first  of  all  the  plain  fact  that  it  was 
not  one  of  the  rival  cults  but  Christianity  which  be- 
came the  centre  of  the  religious  movement.  This  was 
not  due  to  some  accidental  advantage,  whereby  it  was 
able  to  supplant  and  finally  to  absorb  its  rivals,  for 
every  advantage  w^as  on  their  side.  They  were  already 
in  the  field,  and  had  long  overcome  all  popular  preju- 
dice against  them.  They  had  the  prestige  of  high  an- 
tiquity, while  Christianityjiad  only  come  into  existence 
in  the  time  of  mcp  still 'tiring.  They  were  made  im- 
posing to  the  public  eye  by  gorgeous  ceremonial,  and 
men  of  the  loftiest  gifts,  artists  and  poets  and  philoso- 
phers, had  thrown  a  glamour  around  their  doctrines. 
Christianity  from  the  outset  was  the  object  of  dislike 
and  ridicule  and  evei^  kind  of  slander.  Its  founder 
had  notoriously  been  pbndemned  as  a  malefactor.  Its 
adherents  were  drawn  mostly  from  the  lowest  ranks. 
It  lay  under  political  suspicion,  and  all  good  citizens 
were  convinced  that  they^ discharged  a  public  duty  in 
trying  to  suppress  it.  iSllb^ertheless,  wherever  it  w^ent 
it  exercised  a  marvellous  power  of  attraction,  and  the 
movements  which  had  held  contemptuously  aloof  were 
gradually  won  over  to  it.  From  the  time  when  it  had 
once  succeeded  in  putting  its  message  before  the  world 
its  victory  over  all  competitors  w^as  certain,  tit  is  mere 
trifling  to  contend  that  this  success,  obtained  ^  the  teeth 
of  every  drawback,  was  due  to  nothing  moj^e  than  a 
number  of  adventitious  causes.  When  the  amplest  al- 
lowance has  been  made  for  all  of  these  there  is  no  way 
of  accounting  for  the  victory  of  Christianity  except  by 
its  own  inherent  power.     It  mastered  and  assimilated 


:i^ 


The  New  Testament  as  a  Product  of  Its  Time  69 

all  the  higher  life  of  the  time  because  no  other  religion 
could  provide  a  spiritual  centre.  Its  triumph  was 
simply  the  acknowledgTQent  of  this  on  the  part  of  the 
world. 

(2)  The  view  that  our  religion  was  produced  by 
the  blending  of  various  elements  in  first  century  thought 
is  in  some  respects  true,  but  it  leaves  out  of  account 
the  one  all-important  fact.  One  might  as  well  speak  of 
the  human  body  as  the  resultant  of  the  foods  that  have 
gone  to  nourish  it  from  infancy  onward, — forgetting 
altogether  that  it  is  itself  a  vital  organism.  Christian- 
ity from  the  first  was  something  more  than  a  passive 
nucleus,  to  which  thoughts  and  beliefs  from  many  sides 
accidentally  attached  themselves.  It  reacted  on  all  that 
it  borrowed,  and  exercised  a  power  of  selection.  From 
the  miscellaneous  life  of  the  time  it  took  what  was  con- 
genial to  its  own  nature,  rejecting  by  a  sure  instinct  all 
that  was  alien.  The  process  by  which  it  grew  might  be 
compared  to  that  which  takes  place  in  the  formation  of 
a  langTiage.  It  might  easily  be  argued  that  the  English 
we  use  to-day  is  nothing  but  a  conglomerate,  in  which 
the  original  language,  if  there  ever  was  one,  has  been 
submerged  by  the  French  and  Latin  and  innumerable 
foreign  elements  which  have  continually  been  added. 
Xone  the  less  it  has  always  been  in  substance  the  same 
language.  The  people  who  used  it  have  ever  been! 
guided  by  the  sense  of  what  was  consonant  with  it,  and 
if  incongruous  things  have  found  entrance  now  and  then 
they  have  never  maintained  themselves  for  long.  Much 
has  been  written  on  the  influence  of  foreign  thought  on 
Paul  and  the  Fourth  Evangelist,  and  it  may  be  their 
indebtedness  was  greater  than  we  yet  suspect.  But 
far  more  striking  is  their  hold  on  what  is  distinctively 
Christian.  All  that  they  borrow  serves  only  to  illumi- 
nate and  unfold  the  ideas  which  they  share  with  the 


70  The  ]^ew  Testament  Today 

churcli  before  them  and  with  Jesus  himself.  It  is 
strange  indeed  that  so  many  great  scholars  of  our  time 
have  missed  the  true  import  of  the  fact  that  Christianity 
in  its  early  days  was  so  largely  a  borrowing  religion. 
From  this  they  have  inferred  that  it  was  not  an  original 
force,  as  we  have  been  wont  to  conceive  it,  and  owed 
almost  everything  to  those  many  contributions  from 
without.  But  the  very  fact  that  it  could  take  in  so  much 
is  the  proof  of  its  inner  vitality.  It  was  that  energy 
within  itself  that  enabled  it  to  respond  to  the  world 
around  it,  and  to  derive  from  all  that  it  touched  some- 
thing for  its  own  enrichment. 

(3)  This  is  still  more  apparent  when  we  consider 
how  it  never  failed  to  impress  a  new  value  on  every- 
thing it  borrowed.  !N"owhere  is  the  foreign  influence  so 
indubitable  as  in  the  doctrine  of  the  sacraments,  but 
in  Christian  worship  the  grosser  ideas  which  were  as- 
sociated with  the  Pagan  rites  have  entirely  disappeared. 
The  sacraments  have  become  the  symbols  of  fellowship 
with  Christ,  and  serve  to  express  the  great  Christian 
beliefs  and  aspirations.  This  is  no  less  true  of  the  bor- 
rowed philosophical  conceptions.  The  Logos  doctrine  as 
it  appears  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  was  certainly  derived 
through  Philo  from  the  Greek  thinkers,  and  it  was  the 
adoption  of  this  doctrine  which  finally  sealed  the  alli- 
ance between  the  Christian  teaching  and  Greek  specula- 
tion. But  the  Logos  for  John  has  ceased  to  be  a  specu- 
lative abstraction.  While  he  takes  over  the  idea  of  a 
divine  principle  which  from  the  beginning  had  been 
one  with  God  he  thinks  of  it  personally,  and  sees  it 
manifested  in  Jesus  as  he  had  lived  and  died.  It  might 
be  shown  that  wherever  else  there  has  been  a  borrowing 
there  has  been  at  the  same  time  a  transformation.  The 
maxims  of  Stoic  morality  are  adopted  by  the  Christian 
teachers,  but  they  are  made  to  rest  on  those  new  esti- 


The  N'ew  Testament  as  a  Peoduct  of  Its  Time  71 

mates  of  man's  duty  which  had  been  set  forth  by  Jesus. 
The  mystical  piety  of  the  cults  is  grafted  on  the  demand 
for  faith  in  Christ  in  such  a  manner  that  the  two  can 
hardly  be  distinguished.  When  the  foreign  elements 
have  been  thus  baptised  into  the  new  religion  they  can 
no  longer  be  considered  as  in  any  real  sense  foreign. 

(4)  That  Christianity  maintained  its  independence 
is  clear  from  that  variety  in  the  ISlew  Testament  teach- 
ing which  has  already  been  noted.  Some  of  the  writ- 
ings show  hardly  a  trace  of  the  Hellenistic  leaven,  and 
bear  witness  to  a  persistence  of  the  primitive  ideas 
amidst  alien  surroundings.  In  the  books  where  the  for- 
eign influence  is  undoubtedly  at  work  it  manifests  itself 
under  quite  different  forms.  Paul  gives  a  central  place 
to  the  doctrine  of  union  with  Christ  in  his  death  and 
resurrection,  which  is  passed  over  by  the  other  writers. 
The  Fourth  Evangelist  bases  his  Gospel  on  the  concep- 
tion of  the  Logos,  of  which  Paul  takes  practically  no 
account.  The  author  of  Hebrews  rejects  altogether  the 
mystical  side  of  Gentile  thought,  and  avails  himself 
only  of  its  Platonic  idealism.  James  has  no  concern 
with  it  except  in  its  bearing  on  practical  ethics.  In  view 
of  this  wide  divergence  of  interest  it  is  futile  to  think 
of  Christianity  as  identified  with  any  one  phase  of  the 
Hellenistic  movement.  It  was  a  movement  by  itself, 
open  at  every  point  to  suggestions  from  without,  but  in 
no  wise  committed  to  them.  ^'He  who  is  spiritual," 
says  Paul,  ^'juds:es  all  things,  but  he  himself  is  judged 
of  no  man".  This  attitude  of  freedom  which  is  en- 
joined on  the  individual  Christian  is  nowhere  better 
exemplified  than  in  the  early  history  of  the  religion  as 
a  whole.  It  stands  over  against  all  the  outside  forces, 
pressing  them  continually  into  its  service,  but  never  at 
the  sacrifice  of  its  own  distinctive  message. 

The  theory,  therefore,  that  Christianity  was  assimi- 


72  The  'New  Testament  Today 

lated,  at  an  early  stage,  to  tlie  surrounding  Paganism 
cannot  stand  for  a  moment.  From  the  beginning  it  had 
so  marked  an  identity  of  its  own  that  it  resisted  all 
efforts  to  merge  it  in  other  movements  of  the  time,  and 
finally  emerged  victorious.  J^evertheless  there  can  be 
little  doubt  that  while  it  was  still  in  process  of  mould- 
ing it  ^vas  influenced  on  many  sides  from  without,  and 
that  some  of  the  doctrines  Avhich  have  always  been  re- 
garded as  native  to  it  were  in  their  origin  Pagan.  This 
conclusion  alone  has  been  fatal  to  the  traditional  esti- 
mate of  the  ^ew  Testament.  It  has  been  cherished  as 
the  book  in  which  the  authentic  Christian  teachings 
were  set  down  before  they  had  suffered  the  least  taint 
of  corruption,  and  again  and  again,  from  the  Arian  con- 
troversy onwards,  the  church  has  appealed  to  it  as  the 
one  sure  touch-stone.  Here  at  least  was  the  genuine 
gospel;  here  was  the  mind  of  the  primitive  Apostles, 
w^ho  had  received  their  message  directly  from  the  Lord. 
Yet  it  is  just  this  view  of  the  New  Testament  which  is 
now  called  in  question.  We  are  learning  to  suspect  that 
within  a  few  years  of  Jesus'  death  the  gospel  underwent 
an  admixture  from  the  side  of  that  very  Paganism 
which  it  condemned.  No  wonder  that  the  discovery  has 
seemed  to  many  to  have  destroyed  the  value  of  the  ISTew 
Testament;  but  it  may  yet  prove,  when  we  have  had 
further  time  to  reflect  on  it,  to  have  brought  a  gTcat 
gain.  The  old  belief  that  our  religion  was  sullied  in 
so  far  as  it  endured  any  contact  with  alien  thought  was, 
after  all,  a  false  and  arbitrary  one,  a  survival  of  the 
monastic  sentiment  that  the  church  and  the  world  must 
be  kept  utterly  separate.  The  experience  of  the  cen- 
turies has  gone  for  little  unless  we  can  now  conceive  of 
the  divine  forces  as  co-operating  with  the  ordinary  life 
of  man.  Christianity  did  not  grow  up  in  a  cloister.  It 
was  thrown  from  the  outset  into  the  full  current  of  the 


The  'New  Testament  as  a  Peoduct  of  Its  Time  73 

world,  and  was  open  to  all  the  varied  influences  around 
it.  It  freely  absorbed  into  itself  everything  that  might 
enrich  it  and  enable  it  to  appeal  more  directly  to  the 
mind  of  the  time. 

Our  task  to-day  is  to  bring  the  gospel  back  into  this 
relation  to  the  actual  world.  In  our  modem  science  and 
philosophy,  in  our  conceptions  of  society  and  the  state 
and  the  conduct  of  life  there  is  much  that  cannot  be 
fitted  into  the  conventional  creeds.  Can  we  so  expand 
our  religion  that  it  will  give  room  to  all  the  new  wealth 
of  thought  and  experience  and  at  the  same  time  become 
more  truly  itself?  The  ISTew  Testament  is  the  record 
of  how  a  similar  task  was  accomplished  in  the  first  cen- 
tury. Those  early  teachers,  carrying  their  message  into 
the  great  Roman  world,  were  not  afraid  to  cast  it  in 
new  forms  and  to  blend  it  with  many  elements  from 
that  alien  culture  which  they  were  seeking  to  regen- 
erate. They  have  shown  us  how  in  our  time  we  may 
bring  our  faith  into  harmony  with  the  larger  life,  and 
yet  preserve  it  as  the  old  commandment  which  we  had 
from  the  beginning. 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  E'ew  Testament  in  the  Modern  World 


rpi 


|HE  motive  of  the  ISTew  Testament  critic,  like 
that  of  the  investigator  in  other  fields  of  knowl- 
edge, is  simply  to  discover  the  facts.  He  is 
sometimes  represented  as  a  subtle  adversary  of  the  Chris- 
tian beliefs,  sometimes  as  an  advocate  who  seeks  to  pro- 
vide them  with  a  new  line  of  defence,  but  both  views 
are  unjust.  The  critical  enquiry  in  itself  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  religious  issue,  on  one  side  or  the  other. 
I^one  the  less  it  is  impossible  to  survey  its  results  with- 
out some  effort  to  calculate  their  bearing  on  our  religion. 
Especially  in  these  days,  when  the  church  is  facing 
extraordinary  difficulties,  we  cannot  but  ask  ourselves 
Avhether  its  work  will  be  helped  or  hindered  by  the 
light  which  has  been  thrown  on  the  ^ew  Testament. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  in  all  the  Christian  coun- 
tries there  has  been  a  marked  decline  of  the  religious 
spirit  during  the  last  fifty  years,  and  according  to  some 
observers  this  is  the  beginning  of  a  permanent  change. 
Religion,  they  hold,  is  merely  a  phase  through  which 
the  race  has  had  to  pass  in  its  onward  march,  and  the 
point  has  now  been  reached  w^hen  it  is  preparing  to  leave 
this  phase  behind  it.  But  it  may  safely  be  affirmed  that 
there  can  be  no  final  break  with  religion,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  it  is  a  necessary  part  of  man's  nature,  like 
the  love  of  home,  or  the  sense  of  beauty,  or  the  impulse 
towards  knowledge.  So  long  as  men  are  conscious  of 
an  infinite  world  around  them,  so  long  as  they  aspire  to 

74 


The  !N'ew  Testament  in  the  Modern  World    75 

something  higher  than  they  can  ever  attain  to,  they  will 
be  religious.     All  will  and  thought  and  emotion  must 
needs  find  their  issue,  sooner  or  later,  in  some  kind  of| 
religion.     Nor  is  it  a  mere  presumption  to*  believe  that) 
religion,  whatever  may  be  its  future  development,  will 
follow  the  direction  of  Christianity.    The  specific  Chris- 
tian doctrines  may  disappear,  or  suffer  such  a  change 
that  we  shall  hardly  know  them,  but  the  conceptions 
which  lie  at  the  heart  of  the  gospel  are  in  their  nature 
ultimate.     The  soul  of  every  man  has  an  infinite  value ; 
love,   goodness,    truth   are   the  greatest   things   in  the 
world;  men  are  to  find  their  well-being  in  service  to 
one  another ; — these  are  the  Christian  beliefs,  and  while 
they  may  be  capable  of  higher  interpretations  than  we 
can  yet  foresee  they  are  self-evidently  the  final  beliefs. 
IsTo  advance  of  knowledge,  no  grander  civilisation  i& 
conceivable  which  will  carry  us  beyond  them.     The  cus- 
tom has  grown  up,  and  for  scientific  purposes  it  is  con- 
venient and  necessary,  of  classifying  Christianity  along 
with  the  other  great  historical  religions.     This  willing- 
ness to  regard  it  as  only  one  religion  in  a  group  is  sup- 
posed  to  mark  the  tolerance  which   distinguishes   the 
modern  from  the  mediaeval  mind.     But  the  truth  is 
that  Christianity  is  the  only  religion.     It  expresses  in 
their  purity,   and  with  a  clear  consciousness  of  their 
value  and  meaning,  those  elements  in  human  thought 
which   can   properly   be  called   religious.      Nothing   is 
more  significant  than  the  endeavour  of  every  rival  faith 
at  the  present  day  to  bring  itself  into  line  with  the 
Christian  teaching.     Hinduism,   Buddhism,   Judaism, 
Mohammedanism  are  all  being  presented  in  new  forms, 
often  impressive  and  beautiful,  and  disclosing,  we  can- 
not doubt,  the  higher  possibilities  of  their  worship.   But 
it  is  certain  that  these  possibilities  w^ould  have  remained 
hidden  if  it  had  not  been  for  Christianity.     It  has 


7  c  The  jN'ew  Testamei^t  Today 

served  as  tlie  touch-stone  wliereby  the  purer  elements 
in  all  other  religions  can  be  separated  from  the  base 
metal.  Earnest  men  who  cannot  abandon  their  ances- 
tral faith  are  yet  aware  that  it  has  religious  value,  and 
that  they  can  sincerely  hold  to  it,  only  in  so  far  as  it 
answers  to  the  Christian  ideals. 

It  cannot  be  supposed,  then,  that  the  world  will  ever 
move  away  from  religion,  or  from  Christianity,  which 
is  religion  in  its  highest  and  purest  form.  Yet  it  is 
only  too  evident  that  in  our  time  religious  sanctions 
have  lost  their  weight,  religious  ideas  and  observances 
are  counting  for  less  than  ever  before  in  the  lives  of 
ordinary  men.  How  must  we  explain  this  eclipse  of 
religion,  which  may  be  only  temporary  but  is  none  the 
less  real  and  serious? 

(1)  It  is  partly  due  to  that  revolt  from  old  con- 
ceptions of  authority,  to  which  reference  has  been  made 
already.  As  we  watch  the  operation  of  the  new  liberty 
in  all  the  various  fields,  we  are  often  tempted  to  ask 
ourselves  whether  the  gain  has  balanced  the  loss.  By 
submitting  to  an  outward  rule,  however  imperfect,  men 
probably  secured  more  of  the  essential  good  of  life  than 
under  the  new  conditions.  As  citizens  obeying  an  es- 
tablished order  they  were  able  to  live  peaceably,  and  to 
enjoy  their  homes  and  their  friendships,  and  the  things 
that  made  for  culture  and  well-being.  As  religious  men 
they  found  amjDle  support  for  the  higher  life  in  the  in- 
herited beliefs.  The  pious  Catholic  who  rested  his  faith 
on  an  infallible  church  had  access  to  the  inner  secret 
of  the  gospel;  no  one  can  doubt  it  who  is  acquainted 
with  the  ''Imitation"  and  the  mediaeval  hymns.  The 
pious  Protestant  who  believed  in  the  Bible  as  the  lit- 
eral word  of  God  obtained  the  strength  and  the  con- 
solation which  are  the  best  fruits  of  religion.  In  these 
days  of  superior  knowledge  we  often  look  back  wist- 


The  'New  Testament  in  the  Modern  World    77 

fully  on  that  simpler  faith  and  would  fain  return  to  it, 
but  it  is  well  to  recognise  frankly  that  such  a  return  is 
impossible.  For  good  or  evil  men  have  examined  the 
old  political  systems  and  the  ancient  creeds,  and  have 
found  them  baseless.  They  have  discovered  that  the 
Bible  is  not  the  ultimate  truth.  You  can  rest  on  an 
authority  and  make  it  serve  your  higher  welfare  only 
so  long  as  you  honestly  believe  in  it.  As  soon  as  you 
have  cause  to  suspect  it  your  attempts  to  build  on  it  are 
mere  pretence,  and  you  have  no  right  to  make  them.. 
An  authority  of  some  kind  is  necessary  if  the  world  is 
not  to  go  to  pieces,  but  it  must  be  one  that  will  com- 
mand our  inner  obedience,  and  as  yet  we  are  seeking 
for  it  in  vain. 

(2)  Again,  the  modern  spirit  rebels  against  the  one- 
sidedness  of  that  ideal  of  life  which  has  been  offered 
to  it  in  the  name  of  Christianity.  In  the  days  of  the 
Renascence,  when  the  ancient  w^orld  with  its  art  and 
literature  and  magnificent  achievement  was  suddenly 
revealed,  it  seemed  like  the  opening  of  prison  doors. 
For  a  thousand  years  life  had  been  rigidly  circum- 
scribed by  the  teaching  of  the  church ;  a  few  things  had 
been  held  up  so  persistently  for  admiration  that  men 
had  almost  forgotten  the  existence  of  any  others.  ISTow 
they  became  aware  of  the  vast  fields  of  experience,  the 
joy  and  knowledge  and  beauty  from  which  they  had 
been  shut  out,  and  the  consequence  of  the  discovery  was 
a  resentment  against  Christianity,  which  led  for  a  time 
to  something  like  a  reversion  to  Paganism.  This  feel- 
ing of  resentment  never  wholly  died  out,  and  with  the 
broadening  of  all  our  horizons  in  the  last  century  it  has 
declared  itself  more  strongly  than  ever.  Most  men  who 
have  grown  lukewarm  or  hostile  to  Christianity  would 
probably  in  their  different  ways  justify  their  attitude 
on  the  ground  of  this  belief  that  it  unduly  narrows  their 


78  The  I^ew  Testament  Today 

life.  It  puts  the  stamp  of  approval  on  only  one  type  of 
character ;  it  bars  out  all  speculation  that  will  not  square 
with  a  given  creed ;  it  sets  its  face  against  many  things 
that  belong  to  life,  and  ought  therefore  to  have  their 
place  in  its  richness  and  completeness.  Whether  it  is 
reasonable  or  not  we  have  to  reckon  with  this  suspicion 
that  the  effect  of  Christianity  is  to  rob  us  of  some  part 
of  our  birthright.  Our  religion  has  to  be  conceived  in 
some  more  comprehensive  way,  it  has  to  allow  more 
fully  for  the  diversity  of  life  and  admit  many  elements 
which  it  has  insisted  on  excluding,  before  it  will  re- 
cover the  tribute  of  the  modern  world. 

(3)  Behind  all  definite  causes  for  the  impatience 
with  Christianity  there  is  the  sense  that  it  belongs  to 
the  past  and  is  therefore  outworn.  Christian  apologists 
have  justly  laid  stress  on  its  wonderful  record  of  serv- 
ice. It  re-built  a  new  world  after  the  old  one  had 
fallen;  moulded  the  great  modern  nations;  created  all 
the  institutions  which  have  made  for  liberty  and  prog- 
ress; inspired  and  sustained  a  multitude  of  noble  lives. 
All  this  has  been  the  work  of  Christianity,  and  do  we 
need  further  evidence  of  its  indestructible  value  ?  But 
the  very  fact  that  it  has  achieved  such  great  things  may 
be  a  proof  that  its  usefulness  is  now  over.  The  religions 
of  Egypt,  Greece,  Rome  produced  lofty  civilisations, 
but  who  would  think  of  reviving  them?  They  accom- 
plished their  work  so  well  because  they  answered  the 
needs  of  society  at  a  given  stage  of  its  progress,  and 
when  that  stage  was  past  were  nothing  but  a  burden. 
May  it  not  be  the  same  with  Christianity  ?  To  be  sure 
it  has  preserved  its  vitality  for  so  long  a  period  that  it 
may  seem  to  be  independent  of  changing  conditions,  but 
the  reason  may  simply  be  that  life  has  followed  a  uni- 
form course  through  this  whole  period.  Sometimes  it 
comes  over  us  with  a  shock  of  surprise  that  all  the 


The  ISTew  Testament  in  the  Modern  World    79 

things  whicli  are  most  characteristic  of  the  world  we 
live  in  are  only  of  yesterday.  Almost  within  the  mem- 
ory of  men  still  alive  the  political  systems,  the  methods 
of  labour  and  travelling,  the  current  conceptions  of 
man's  place  in  the  universe  were  much  the  same  as  when 
Christianity  began  its  mission.  For  all  these  centuries 
it  was  in  full  harmony  with  the  world's  needs,  but  in 
our  time  there  has  been  a  revolution,  such  as  was  never 
known  before.  Science  has  compelled  us  to  look  out 
on  nature  with  different  eyes.  Machinery  has  altered 
all  the  conditions  of  living.  The  awakening  of  the 
masses  has  brought  about  the  overthrow  of  the  old  social 
order.  It  is  the  consciousness  of  this  profound  change, 
more  than  anything  else,  which  has  caused  the  present 
drift  from  Christianity.  Blame  has  sometimes  been 
laid  on  the  apathy  of  churches,  but  it  may  fairly  be 
claimed  that  in  no  previous  age  has  the  church  been 
so  anxious  to  fulfil  its  obligations.  Blame  has  been 
laid  on  what  is  vaguely  called  the  materialism  of  the 
time,  but  this  is  equally  beside  the  mark.  To  bring 
material  things  into  the  service  of  man  is  one  of  the 
noblest  of  duties,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  an  age 
devoted  to  it  should  grow  less  religious.  The  spiritual 
decline  is  rather  to  be  explained  from  this, — that  the 
progress  in  life  as  a  whole  has  outrun  the  religious 
progress.  For  the  old  needs  the  inherited  faith  wasi 
sufficient,  but  all  at  once  came  the  enormous  access  of 
power,  freedom,  opportunity.  We  are  growing  con- 
scious in  these  days  that  the  old  faith  cannot  bear  the 
strain,  and  on  all  sides  there  is  a  growing  cleavage  be- 
tween life  and  religion. 

These  appear  to  be  the  chief  reasons  of  a  <;hange 
which  has  long  been  threatening,  and  has  now  to  be  con- 
fronted. Judging  by  many  signs  it  might  almost  seem 
as  if  the  days  of  our  religion  were  numbered.     It  is 


80  The  !N"ew  Testament  Today 

significant,  however,  that  in  the  mind  of  nearly  every- 
one there  is  an  increasing  sense  of  regret  and  loss.  Not 
so  long  ago  the  escape  from  religion  was  hailed  as  a 
glorious  emancipation.  It  was  the  fashion  to  picture 
the  church  as  the  grand  obstacle  to  progress,  the  chief 
buttress  of  unjust  privilege,  the  secular  enemy  of  cul- 
ture and  enlightenment.  Blustering  attacks  on  it  never 
missed  their  applause.  But  this  animosity  now  sur- 
vives only  among  the  very  ignorant.  Thoughtful  men, 
even  when  they  are  most  strongly  opposed  to  Chris- 
tianity, are  conscious  of  all  that  it  has  meant  to  the 
world,  and  look  with  dismay  to  the  time  when'  it  will 
have  vanished. 

This  new  feeling  has  become  far  more  acute  and 
more  prevalent  in  the  last  few  years.  Even  before  the 
war  it  was  increasingly  evident  that  somewhere  in  our 
modern  life  there  was  a  deep-seated  flaw.  Superficial 
obser\^ers  had  eyes  only  for  the  manifold  signs  of  pros- 
perity, and  assured  us  confidently  that  we  had  now 
struck  the  high-road  to  the  millennium;  but  those  who 
could  see  further  never  shared  this  optimism.  Then 
came  the  great  collapse,  and  everybody  would  now  con- 
fess that  whatever  were  its  definite  causes  it  was  the 
outcome  of  a  far  more  radical  trouble.  Something  had 
been  missing  in  our  life,  and  for  the  want  of  it  all  the 
things  that  ought  to  have  made  for  welfare  became  mis- 
chievous. It  seemed  to  the  reformers  of  last  century 
that  the  world  would  be  saved  by  scientific  progress, 
unity  of  national  life,  growth  of  material  resources. 
These  things  were  achieved  in  far  larger  measure  than 
they  dared  to  hope,  and  the  result  has  been  the  most 
fearful  calamity  that  has  ever  happened  on  earth. 
Political  unity  set  the  nations  in  fierce  rivalry  with  one 
another.  The  splendid  advances  in  science  made  the 
arts   of   destruction  more  terrible.      Accumulation   of 


The  !N"ew  Testament  in  the  Modeen  Would    81 

wealth,  instead  of  easing  the  struggle  for  existence,  has 
created  a  huger  mass  of  poverty.  Why  is  it  that  all 
the  blessings  men  prayed  for  have  thus  been  changed, 
as  in  some  old  Pagan  story,  into  a  curse?  The  fault 
cannot  be  in  the  things  themselves,  for  these  are  un- 
doubtedly the  necessary  means  to  a  larger  human  life, 
and  we  cannot  have  too  much  of  them.  Yet  they  have 
proved  fruitless,  and  all  who  have  pondered  the  riddle 
have  arrived  at  the  same  answer,  though  they  may  state 
it  in  different  terms.  That  which  was  wanting  in  our 
modem  civilisation  was  the  religious  motive.  Our  life, 
though  it  had  grown  ampler  and  richer,  had  lost  the 
instinct  of  direction, — had  ceased  to  relate  itself  to  those 
higher  laws  on  w^hich  its  safety  and  well-being  must 
ultimately  depend.  Everything  was  lavishly  provided 
for  the  voyage,  but  the  compass  had  broken  down. 

All  who  are  seriously  grappling  with  the  problems  of 
this  time  are  alive  to  the  great  defect,  and  are  pointing 
to  various  means  by  which  it  may  be  remedied.  Some 
think  it  possible  that  one  enthusiasm  or  another  may 
prove  to  be  an  adequate  substitute  for  religion.  A  few 
years  ago  the  favourite  substitute  was  patriotism;  and 
in  Germany,  more  especially,  a  deliberate  effort  was 
made  to  exalt  the  State  into  a  supreme  ideal,  which 
should  satisfy  that  side  of  man's  nature  which  had  hith- 
erto turned  to  religion.  For  Germany  and  the  world 
this  cult  of  the  State  has  produced  such  fruits  that  it  is 
not  likely  to  be  perpetuated.  It  is  now  customary  in 
some  quarters  to  speak  of  a  religion  of  democracy  or 
labour  or  social  justice,  but  this  is  merely  an  abuse  of 
language.  A  social  enthusiasm  may  spring  from  a  re- 
ligious motive,  but  cannot  of  itself  supply  one.  It  is 
but  too  evident,  from  the  experiments  of  our  day,  that 
the  new  economic  cults  have  their  outcome  in  cupidity 
and  class-hatred,  and  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 


82  The  E'ew  Testament  Today 

the  higher  life.     This,  indeed,  is  the  fallacy  of  all  at- 
tempts to  find  a  substitute  for  religion, — that  without 
religion  all  the  other  causes  that  inspire  us  become  flat 
and  meaningless.     I^othing  is  left  of  devotion  to  one's 
country  or  one's  fellow-men  but  some  larger  and  more 
dangerous  kind  of  self-assertion.     Apart  from  religion 
there  can  be  no  cleansing  purpose,  no  quickening  power. 
Instead  of  a  substitute,  therefore,  many  are  hoping 
for  a  new  religion,  which  will  by  and  bye  supersede  the 
old  one.     There  is  certainly  no  existing  faith  which  any 
sane  man  would  dream  of  enthroning  in  the  place  of 
Christianity,  nor  is  there  any  movement  which  seems 
to  have  in  it  even  the  germs  of  a  new  religion.    But  this 
might  also  have  been  said  at  the  beginning  of  the  Chris- 
tian era,  and  why  may  we  not  surmise  that  some  great 
personality  will  again  appear,  some  new  breath  of  the 
Spirit  will  touch  the  exhausted  world  ?    It  may  well  be 
doubted,  however,  whether  a  new  religion  is  either  pos- 
sible or  necessary.     If  it  comes  it  can  only  take  the 
form  of  a  re-affirmation  of  the  principles  already  con- 
tained in  Christianity,  and  to  that  extent  would  not  be 
new.     Hitherto  all  the  efforts  to  create  a  new  religion 
have  consisted  in  nothing  else  than  in  lifting  some  par- 
ticular idea  out  of  its  Christian  setting,  and  putting  it 
in  a  different  and  much  inferior  one.     As  we  contem- 
plate these  modern  cults  we  are  reminded  of  the  struc- 
tures which  arose  in  the  Middle  Ages  out  of  the  ruins 
of  the  Roman  palaces  and  temples.     Glorious  arches 
gave  entrance  to  a  row  of  stables;  broken  shafts  of 
columns  were  embedded  in  rude  masonry,  which  looked 
all  the  meaner  by  the  contrast.    So  with  the  new  creeds, 
ethical  and  mystical  and  humanitarian.     They  are  built 
out  of  a.  jumble  of  Christian  fragments,  which  cannot 
be  understood  till  they  are  put  back  into  their  true  con- 
text. 


The  'Nbw  Testament  in  the  Modern  World    83 

1^0  new  religion,  or  substitute  for  a  religion  is 
needed,  for  what  the  world  is  seeking  is  simply  a  return 
to  Christianity.  It  has  indeed  moved  away  from  many 
of  the  traditional  beliefs,  but  there  has  never  been  an 
age  which  was  more  in  sympathy  with  the  essential 
gospel.  This  is  the  tragedy  of  that  drift  from  religion 
which  we  see  around  us, — that  it  has  happened  in  an 
age  which  of  all  others  might  have  responded  to  Christ. 
He  has  come  to  his  own  and  they  receive  him  not. 

jFor  one  thing  it  is  in  this  age  that  the  great  Chris- 
tian idea  of  human  brotherhood  has  shown  signs  of 
realising  itself.  It  has  been  furthered,  no  doubt,  by 
many  forces  which  are  quite  apart  from  religion, — ^by 
commercial  intercourse,  by  the  mingling  of  diverse 
races  in  the  new  countries,  by  political  levelling,  even 
by  the  disillusionment  of  war.  But  along  these  paths 
men  have  been  feeling  their  way  towards  one  of  the 
central  truths  of  the  gospel.  They  have  learned  to  set 
up  as  the  chief  goal  of  practical  statesmanship  what  the 
church  has  always  cherished  as  a  far-off  ideal.  And 
when  due  account  has  been  taken  of  all  the  co-operating 
causes  the  chief  force  in  the  creation  of  this  sense  of 
brotherhood  has  been  nothing  else  than  the  leaven  of 
Christianity,  working  silently  for  these  two  thousand 
years. 

Again,  the  feeling  has  taken  possession  of  this  age, 
more  than  of  any  before  it,  that  the  true  aims  of  life 
are  spiritual.  Here  also  we  must  reckon  with  many 
tributary  causes,  some  of  them  negative.  By  the  very 
concentration  on  the  material  side  of  life  we  have  grown 
aware  of  its  insufficiency.  Wealth  and  invention  have 
advanced  further  than  men  ever  dreamed  of,  only  to  im- 
press on  us  that  not  one  of  our  real  wants  has  been  satis- 
fied. But  at  the  same  time  there  has  been  a  positive 
strengthening  of  the  spiritual  instincts.     JSTo  time  has 


S4:  The  Kew  Testament  Today 

ever  been  when  men  were  swayed  so  much  by  ideal 
motives,  or  were  so  convinced  that  the  intangible  things 
are  alone  worth  striving  for.  It  is  this,  indeed,  that 
makes  the  movements  of  our  age  so  incalculable,  and 
in  many  ways  so  dangerous.  If  the  late  war  had  been 
fought,  like  former  ones,  merely  for  new  wealth  or  ter- 
ritory, it  would  never  have  lasted  through  those  four 
terrible  years.  If  the  struggle  now  in  process  had  no 
other  end  in  view  than  political  re-adjustments  and  eco- 
nomic advantages  it  could  soon  be  settled  by  some  com- 
promise. But  the  real  motives  that  are  at  work,  however 
we  may  judge  them,  are  spiritual  in  their  nature,  and 
no  one  can  fore-tell  whither  they  will  ultimately  drive. 
Once  more,  there  are  many  evidences  that  men  are 
wakening  again  to  a  sense  of  the  mystery  that  sur- 
rounds our  life.  A  generation  ago  it  was  commonly 
expected  that  all  secrets  were  presently  to  be  laid  bare. 
This  illusion  was  rarely  shared  by  men  of  science  them- 
selves, whose  knowledge  of  their  limitations  has  been 
in  striking  contrast  to  the  arrogance  of  theologians. 
But  the  progress  of  science  undoubtedly  encouraged  the 
belief  among  the  mass  of  unreflecting  people  that  the 
riddle  of  the  universe  had  at  last  been  nearly  solved. 
Life,  it  was  assumed,  was  no  longer  inexplicable.  All 
things  in  heaven  and  earth  were  regarded  as  parts  of  a 
vast  mechanism,  which  baffled  us  as  yet  only  because  it 
was  so  complicated.  This  mode  of  thinking  is  already 
out  of  date,  and  on  all  sides  we  can  note  a  revulsion 
from  the  mechanical  theory  of  the  world.  Philosophy 
is  working  back  to  something  like  the  old  idealistic  posi- 
tions; science  itself  is  making  room  for  unknowable 
factors  in  its  analysis  of  life  and  matter ;  ordinary  men 
and  women  are  speculating,  often  in  a  very  crude  and 
dubious  fashion,  about  the  invisible  world.  This  re- 
vival of  the  feeling  of  mystery  is  one  of  the  most  re- 


The  "New  Testament  in  the  Modern  World    85 

markable  signs  of  our  times,  and  out  of  this  feeling 
religion  has  always  been  bom. 

Besides  all  this,  in  spite  of  the  distaste  for  Christian 
dogma  there  is  a  growing  recognition  of  the  truth  and 
value  of  Christian  morality.  It  was  one  of  the  gravest 
symptoms  of  the  period  before  the  war  that  the  ethical 
standards  of  Christianity  were  openly  challenged. 
There  were  brilliant  writers  in  every  country  who  de- 
manded a  new  moral  code,  based  frankly  on  principles 
of  egoism.  The  belief  was  steadily  making  its  way 
among  the  mass  of  the  people  that  the  old  restrictions 
were  burdensome  and  artificial,  and  ought  now  to  be 
shaken  off  by  enlightened  men.  The  war  with  its  at- 
tendant horrors  was  largely  an  outgrowth  of  this  revived 
Paganism,  and  by  exposing  it  may  yet  be  found  to  have 
saved  our  civilisation.  We  have  been  recalled,  by  a 
tremendous  shock,  to  moral  realities.  It  has  become 
evident  to  all  men  that  the  new  theories,  often  set  forth 
so  plausibly,  have  their  issues  in  death,  and  that  the 
Christian  standards  are  valid  for  our  complex  modern 
world  just  as  much  as  for  the  simpler  conditions  of  the 
past.  The  recognition  of  this  is  the  driving  force  be- 
hind all  the  social  movement  of  the  present  day.  Men 
have  come  to  realise,  as  never  before,  that  the  prin- 
ciples laid  down  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  are  not 
the  dreams  of  a  religious  visionary,  but  the  solid  founda- 
tions on  which  alone  a  human  society  can  permanently 
rest. 

So  by  many  paths  we  have  gradually  been  returning 
to  a  mood  which  is  in  sympathy  with  the  Christian  mes- 
sage. A  new  consciousness  has  sprung  up  that  man  is 
a  spiritual  being,  that  the  ends  of  his  life  must  be 
spiritual,  that  his  progress  is  bound  up  with  his  accept- 
ing the  Christian  ideas  of  brotherhood  and  the  suprem- 
acy of  the   moral  law.     In  not   a   few   respects   the 


86  The  E'ew  Testament  Today 

conditions  of  the  time  are  not  dissimilar  to  those  of  the 
first  century.  We  have  again  a  highly  developed  so- 
ciety in  which  many  diverse  elements  are  being  fused 
together,  and  which  is  being  threatened  with  exhaustion. 
We  have  the  same  discontent  with  the  present,  the  same 
vague  stirrings  of  a  new  spiritual  life.  At  that  time 
Christianity  came  forward  with  its  message,  and  found 
a  mood  that  was  able  to  respond  to  it.  It  gave  unity 
and  direction  to  the  longings  for  deliverance.  It  created 
a  spring  of  energy  which  enabled  the  wearied  world  to 
set  out  again  on  a  more  strenuous  march.  May  not  the 
miracle  be  repeated?  !N'o  new  religion  is  likely  to 
offer  itself,  and  none  is  needed.  There  are  still  forces 
in  Christianity  more  than  sufficient;  how  can  they  be 
made  effectual  for  the  needs  of  our  age  ? 

The  question  is  one  which  cannot  be  answered,  for 
nothing  is  so  incalculable  as  the  impulse  which  leads  to 
religious  revival.  In  these  days,  when  everything  is 
reduced  to  system,  the  call  arises  from  time  to  time  for 
organised  effort  in  the  sphere  of  religion.  But  there 
are  some  things,  and  it  is  a  comfort  to  think  of  it, 
which  cannot  be  done  by  the  most  skilful  organisation. 
The  life  of  the  spirit  answers  to  its  own  laws,  which 
cannot  be  discovered,  and  which  certainly  are  not  those 
of  the  efficient  business  or  work-shop.  The  springs  of 
the  new  life  must  issue  spontaneously,  but  meanwhile  a 
channel  can  be  prepared  for  them,  and  the  criticism  of 
the  ISTew  Testament  is  one  of  the  chief  agencies  which 
have  been  working  to  this  end.  The  idea  still  lingers 
in  some  pious  circles  that  it  has  been  merely  destruc- 
tive, and  there  are  no  doubt  many  things  in  the  tradi- 
tional faith  which  it  has  destroyed.  But  for  this  very 
reason  it  has  made  possible  a  new  presentation  of  Chris- 
tianity, such  as  will  carry  a  real  conviction  to  the  mod- 
ern mind. 


The  ISTew  Testament  in  the  Modern  Would    87 

For  one  thing,  it  is  no  small  matter  that  we  can  now 
feel  reasonably  certain  of  what  the  IsTew  Testament  is, 
and  what  it  is  meant  to  teach  us.  In  old  days  enquiry 
was  forbidden.  The  book  was  simply  thrust  upon 
Christian  men,  and  a  merit  was  made  of  their  accept- 
ing everything  contained  in  it  without  doubt  or  ques- 
tion. Such  a  demand  was  always  felt  to  be  unjust,  and 
in  this  age,  when  everything  else  is  subjected  to  the 
freest  enquiry,  it  was  becoming  more  and  more  danger- 
ous. Enemies  declared  that  the  book  shunned  examina- 
tion because  it  could  not  bear  it;  and  even  the  devout 
believer  could  not  but  feel  that  he  was  staking  his  whole 
faith  on  unproved  assertions.  The  church  has  done 
itself  irreparable  harm  by  refusing  to  submit  its  title- 
deeds  to  any  test.  It' reasoned  that  discussion  would 
foster  a  habit  of  doubt,  and  that  absolute  confidence  was 
necessary  on  the  fundamental  matters  of  religion.  But 
the  confidence  that  is  secured  by  merely  shutting  your 
ears  to  evidence  is  easily  shaken.  To  demand  it  in  our 
days  from  any  intelligent  man  is  flatly  impossible. 
Criticism,  whatever  else  it  has  done,  has  enabled  us  to 
get  behind  legends  and  conjectures  and  lay  hold  of 
facts.  The  facts  may  seem  poorer  than  the  imagina- 
tions, but  at  any  rate  they  are  facts.  We  know  at  last 
what  our  religion  is  based  on;  faith  has  found  a  real 
starting-point. 

But  again,  the  effort  to  reach  the  facts  has  not  im- 
poverished the  ISTew  Testament,  or  the  religion  to  which 
it  witnesses.  To  be  sure  we  are  now  obliged  to  recog- 
nise the  human  limitations  of  the  book.  We  can  see 
that  doctrines  which  were  once  supposed  to  embody  the 
absolute  truth  were  mixed  up  with  much  that  was 
transient  and  mistaken.  But  all  enquiry  has  served  to 
deepen  our  reverence  for  the  book  as  an  expression  of 
religion.      We    have    been    made    to    realise   that   the 


88  The  E'ew  Testamen"t  Today 

writers  were  seeking  to  define,  in  terms  however  inade- 
quate, things  which  they  intensely  felt,  and  which,  in 
their  innermost  meaning,  must  stand  forever.  Because 
it  thus  takes  us  so  close  to  the  realities  of  religion  the 
]^ew  Testament  has  more  to  give  us  than  if  it  was  an 
infallible  guide  to  doctrine.  We  enter  by  means  of  it 
into  communion  with  great  seekers  after  God.  Our 
very  sense  that  they  could  only  half  express  themselves 
arouses  us  to  a  personal  effort  of  faith  and  sympathy, 
so  that  we  may  reach  through  the  letter  to  the  living 
conviction  that  was  in  their  minds.  The  modern  en- 
quiry has  indeed  made  us  more  than  ever  doubtful  of 
the  traditional  forms  of  Christianity,  from  which,  in 
any  case,  the  age  had  broken  away.  But  it  has  brought 
us  a  far  clearer  insight  into  their  inner  significance. 
We  can  feel  again,  as  men  felt  in  the  primitive  age, 
that  what  Christ  gave  was  not  a  creed  or  a  system  but 
a  regenerating  spirit. 

The  'New  Testament,  moreover,  has  gained  in  value 
since  we  have  learned  to  read  it  in  its  relation  to  his- 
tory. The  older  theology  sought  to  detach  it  as  far  as 
possible  from  the  time  to  which  it  belonged,  with  the 
object  of  enhancing  its  authority.  It  was  assumed  that 
the  Apostles  were  set  free,  by  some  divine  privilege, 
from  the  restrictions  of  their  age.  They  were  able  to 
state  the  truths  revealed  to  them  in  terms  that  would 
be  always  valid.  They  enjoyed  a  vision  that  extended 
to  the  farthest  future,  so  that  the  rules  which  they  laid 
down  for  their  own  time  would  serve  for  the  permanent 
guidance  of  the  church.  But  this  attempt  to  lift  the 
ifew  Testament  out  of  the  frame- work  of  history  only 
weakened  and  obscured  its  message.  The  Christianity 
for  which  it  stands  is  not  an  abstract  ideal,  but  an  ideal 
entering  into  time,  and  bringing  its  power  to  bear  on 
the  obstinate  material  of  work-a-day  life.     We  see  it 


The  New  Testament  in  the  Modeen  World    89 

taking  hold  of  that  Pagan  world  of  the  first  century, 
transforming  a  society  that  was  on  the  point  of  decay, 
adjusting  itself  to  the  ideas  and  conditions  of  the  time 
in  order  to  work  more  eJffectually.  Our  religion  as  we 
thus  study  it  in  action  becomes  more  of  a  reality.  In 
the  light  of  that  early  record  we  can  set  it  in  relation 
to  the  problems  and  difficulties  which  confront  us  to- 
day. Historians  tell  us  that  the  great  religious  move- 
ment in  the  age  of  St.  Bernard  and  St.  Francis  was  due 
in  part  to  the  acquaintance  with  the  Holy  Land  which 
had  resulted  from  the  Crusades.  The  places  associated 
with  the  life  of  Jesus  had  hitherto  been  nothing  but 
strange  names,  suggesting  theological  ideas.  ISTow  they 
were  suddenly  discovered  to  be  towns  and  villages,  just 
as  real  as  those  of  France  or  Italy.  The  ancient  story 
was  made  living  again.  Men  could  feel  that  it  had 
actually  happened,  that  it  belonged  to  their  own  world, 
that  it  had  a  significance  for  them  still.  There  are 
many  signs  that  something  like  the  same  result  is  fol- 
lowing from  the  historical  study  of  the  'New  Testament. 
It  seemed  at  first  an  irreverence  to  think  of  Jesus  as 
a  man  of  his  time,  and  to  examine  his  gospel  in  its  con- 
nection with  first  century  thought.  But  already  it  is 
apparent  that  the  new  attitude  to  the  book  has  put  life 
into  its  message.  We  can  recognise  that  Paul  and  his 
fellow- Apostles,  even  when  their  language  appears  most 
abstract,  are  speaking  out  of  a  deeply  felt  experience, 
and  with  a  view  to  actual  circumstances ;  nor  is  it  diffi- 
cult to  see  how  these  circumstances  are  repeating  them- 
selves, under  various  disguises,  in  the  world  of  to-day. 
Above  all,  the  figure  of  Jesus  himself  stands  out  all  the 
more  grandly  as  the  mists  of  theological  speculation  are 
blown  away  from  him,  and  we  come  to  discern  him  as 
he  really  sojourned  on  earth.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  by  recovering  for  us  the  historical  life  of  Jesus 


90  The  I^Tew  Testament  Today 

criticism  has  brought  Christianity  back  to  the  true 
sources  of  its  power.  The  creeds,  whatever  may  have 
been  their  value  formerly,  have  broken  down,  but  Jesus 
as  we  know  him  in  his  life,  and  all  the  more  as  the  life 
is  freed  from  accretions  of  legend,  still  commands  the 
world's  reverence  and  devotion.  The  theology  of  the 
future,  it  is  not  rash  to  prophesy,  will  start  from  the 
interpretation  of  Jesus  as  a  man  in  history. 

Finally,  the  modern  enquiry  has  made  it  possible  for 
us  to  think  of  Christianity  as  a  living  revelation.  Ac- 
cording to  the  old  view  the  mind  of  the  Spirit  was  com- 
municated once  for  all  in  the  'New  Testament,  so  that 
henceforth  the  church  had  no  other  duty  than  to  guard 
the  deposit  of  truth.  This  assumption,  more  than  any- 
thing else,  has  weighed  like  a  burden  on  Christianity. 
Ever  and  again  great  enterprises  for  human  welfare 
have  been  arrested,  because  the  New  Testament  said 
nothing  of  them,  or  seemed  to  discountenance  them. 
Advances  in  knowledge  have  been  condemned  because 
they  lay  beyond  the  horizon  of  New  Testament  thought. 
It  is  one  of  the  ironies  of  history  that  the  names  of  the 
great  pioneers  and  liberators  have  always  been  used, 
in  a  later  age,  as  watch-words  of  reaction ;  and  this  per- 
version has  never  been  so  manifest  as  in  the  case  of  the 
New  Testament.  It  owed  its  very  existence  to  an  im- 
pulse of  progress.  As  they  encountered  ever  new  con- 
ditions the  missionaries  sought  to  bring  their  gospel 
into  harmony  with  them.  The  aid  of  Greek  speculation 
was  called  in  to  interpret  the  work  of  Jesus  to  the 
Gentiles;  the  demands  he  had  laid  down  were  applied 
in  new  directions  to  meet  the  difficulties  which  could 
not  present  themselves  in  Galilee  or  Jerusalem.  No 
forward  movement  has  ever  been  so  bold  and  rapid  as 
that  which  transformed  a  little  Jewish  sect  into  the 
church  of  a  great  empire,  made  up  of  diverse  races 


The  "Nbw  Testament  in  the  Modern  Wokld    91 

which  had  been  nurtured  in  heathenism.  It  is  surely 
illogical  to  acclaim  the  ]^ew  Testament  writers  as  the 
men  who  understood  Christianity  best,  and  in  the  same 
breath  to  denounce  the  very  principles  they  worked  on. 
They  refused  to  identify  the  gospel  with  any  set  mode 
of  declaring  it.  They  saw  that  it  could  preserve  itself 
only  by  taking  in  new  elements,  and  throwing  itself 
continually  into  fresh  moulds.  May  we  not  hope  that 
one  result  of  the  convulsions  through  which  we  are  now 
passing  will  be  to  recover  for  Christianity  that  freedom 
of  movement  which  it  possessed  in  the  early  days  ?  It 
has  been  so  long  associated  with  a  given  type  of  thought, 
a  given  structure  of  society  that  it  has  become  frost- 
bound.  For  most  people  it  is  an  integral  part  of  the 
old  order,  and  they  are  afraid  of  the  changes  which  will 
involve  its  destruction. '  But  the  breaking  up  of  the  old 
order  has  thrown  it  back  on.  its  inward  power  of  self- 
renewal.  The  changes  which  may  seem  for  the  moment 
to  have  wrecked  it  will  prove  in  the  end  to  have  meant 
its  liberation. 

Life  is  always  in  movement,  and  the  message  which 
has  inspired  one  generation  will  be  meaningless  in  the 
next.  JSTone  the  less,  in  its  deeper  issues  life  is  always 
the  same;  no  truth  which  has  once  been  able  to  uplift 
and  strengthen  it  will  ever  be  out  of  date.  The  gospel 
makes  its  appeal  to  what  is  central  and  permanent  in 
man's  nature,  but  it  loses  half  its  power  unless  it  can 
adjust  itself  continually  to  the  process  of  change.  It 
has  been  the  error  of  the  church  in  the  past  that  it  has 
been  mindful  only  of  one  side  of  its  twofold  task. 
Rightly  insisting  that  its  message  has  an  eternal  value 
it  has  striven  to  preserve  it  in  the  same  rigid  forms, 
and  the  world's  life  has  now  outgrown  them.  The  mod- 
em enquiry  has  rendered  the  church  a  vital  service  by 
impressing  on  it  that  the  faith  which  cramps  itself 


92  The  ISTew  Testament  Today 

within  a  fixed  tradition  is  not  the  faith  of  the  "New 
Testament.  Christianity,  as  we  know  it  from  the 
earliest  records,  kept  pace  with  the  movement  of  life. 
It  w^as  at  once  the  truth  proclaimed  by  Jesus  and  the 
truth  which  unfolded  itself  through  the  operation  of  his 
living  Spirit.  More  than  once  in  the  course  of  its  his- 
tory our  religion  has  been  saved  by  a  return  to  the  'New 
Testament,  and  this,  we  may  dare  to  anticipate,  will 
happen  again.  The  ancient  book,  which  seemed  to  bind 
us  to  an  outworn  past,  has  become  our  charter  of  lib- 
erty. We  are  loyal  to  it  most  when  we  answer  its  call 
to  go  forward,  and  to  re-fashion  its  teaching  by  the 
larger  light  of  this  new  time. 


Date  Due 

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BS2350 .S42 

The  New  Testament  today, 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


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